Greatest Ethical Challenge of Today S World

GREATEST ETHICAL CHALLENGE OF TODAY’S WORLD

Education is the best achievement a person achieves all through the life.

The above quote sums up the essence of education and as an educator I am here to pen down by thoughts on the greatest ethical challenge of today. We as educators to whichever nook and corner of the world we may belong to or teach, have given our students access to new technology in the form of Flipped Classes, Designed thinking, Self learning, gamification or the like. These resources may have helped us to connect well with our students, may have redesigned the teaching—learning process, may have brought about creativity in all our subjects —may it be Mathematics, English,Social Science or even Science, may have enabled our students to score better in their Exams or may have have contributed to an increase in the number of Doctors,Teachers,lawyers etc. But we as educators nave FAILED TO TOUCH THEIR HEART, we have failed to connect the students with their inner self—the ATMAN (as we call it in Hinduism) We have failed to inculcate life –long values in them. We may have taught them 21 st Century life skills but we have not been able to make our students imbibe the values that are centuries old and those never needed to be penned down in books till recently and were just passed down from one generation to another. It was once believed that values are to be caught and not to be taught. So I am looking at the Greatest ethical challenge of today from the point of view of EDUCATIONAL EROSION. I believe that we as pedagogues have a much larger task than simply teaching our subjects. We are there for a purpose and that purpose is to shape the destiny of our students and thereby the destiny of our country. We are bigger nation builders than any of our statesmen. A paper released by two Sociologists----Gambetta and Hertog contains the find that engineers, in particular, were three to four times more likely to become violent terrorists than their peers in finance, medicine or the sciences. It is also true that 8 out of 25 9/11 hijackers were engineers. The underlying fact is that when all is said and done while teaching them Mechanical,Chemical,Electronic Engineering and the like—a propensity for freedom of speech and expression, religious tolerance, democratic values should have developed in the students. Education is often advocated as antidote of terrorism,as education may make individuals less assailable to the false promises of extremist ideologies. Education can’t eradicate terrorism as studies reveal that even the most educated people harbor hate and also themselves indulge in acts of violence. It is also true that ignorance,illiteracy,poverty –all play a major role in providing armies to global terrorism. It thus becomes pertinent for every student to get education specially quality education.

‘No matter their background, what seems to unite all terrorists is a willingness to subordinate their indivduial identity to a collective identity’--- Political psychologist Jerrold M. Post of George Washington University. The school culture should develop the feeling of collective belongingness in the students enabled by shared values and traditions. The schools can act as catalysts for building an all inclusive,democratic society. There would be less of terrorism, less of violence,lesser bloodshed if the schools were committed to teach the students to treat each other humanely,abide by the rule of law,to be generous and caring to their neighbours,to be religiously tolerant,less aggressive etc.

Young people are not born terrorists, we need more education to prevent terrorism' - NUIG Professor in Brussels Yes indeed it is true that we pedagogues are only able to teach empirically to the students,are able to complete our courses, are able to successfully impart the 21 century skills in the students like Critical Thinking, Problem Solving,Collaborative Learning but on the other hand we have failed to develop some ancient values in our students—those acts of behaviour that conform to human needs. Certain guiding principles that go a long way in moulding a student’s mental, physical, emotional, psychological well being are missing from the school programmes. In our Indian Educational system—called GURUKULS, the students would be taught Spirituality,Self- sacrifice,empathy, acceptance,simplicity,dignity of labout etc. Indian Philosophy itself was based on various values like Social Service, Non-violence,truth, courtesy,brotherhood etc. there was respect for the teacher—the GURU who was placed above God itself-- a philosophy that no more exists today. But today due to lack of time, lack of enthusiasm, imperative need for timely winding up of syllabus, value inculcation has taken a back seat. The students today no more cognise the difference between right and wrong, there is turmoil in the lives of the students,there is to bullying-on and off campus, conflicts between parental expectations and children’s beliefs. I strongly believe that the greatest ethical challenge of today is to bring up honourable, vindicatory students who would be an asset not only ro their families but also to their institutions as well as their nation. It is justly said that if we want our children to grow up to be good and useful citizens,then we must inculcate the right values and habits in them. If we teach them only to focus on themselves then they will grow up to be self—centred,egoistic, thinking that the world owes them a living. The child,the parent and the teachers are the three important apexes of a triangle and must work in compliance with each other for the sake of shaping the destiny of the Child. Today the students are facing the problems of failing to network, are disoriented, are not able to resolve relationship issues, show disrespect for teachers. Even the problems of apathy, tardiness,absenteeism abound. A positive school culture is the need of the hour, which needs to be supportive and all inclusive,a positive school climate in which there is a sense of collective efficacy will help to address a number of problems and help to develop ethical values in students and also contribute towards character building because after all As the saying goes: "Character is how you behave when nobody is looking."

Build A Bomber by Benjamin Popper