Moral Education of Children

Moral education has always been an issue in schools. Although the methodology and the content have changed over the past years, ways to implement and bring these theories into the classroom and internalize them within children is still one of the important research topics.

Moral education is most successful when it is passive and indirect. We all know that our best and deepest moments of learning were when we actually didn't know that we are doing so. Somebody told us a story, we watched a movie or we saw the outcomes of somebody else's experience. Besides, everyone knows the child that is burnt by fire will learn not to touch it anymore; so self-experiencing is another factor that deepens learning. There's one more thing. Isn't childhood a period to play? Do we have the right to lessen the joy that supposed to exist in one child's life to teach him/ her moral values? Can there be a better way to combine play, self-experiencing and indirect teaching? Well, in our world everything is not capable of being experienced. We all worry for our children. We can not just let them to try everything out just for the purpose of deep learning.

But let say if we had a virtual world that we could free our children over there to try whatever, and be sure that it is made in a way that would cause no harm, then we'd come to discover a potential educational world. And if that doesn't seem like the virtual world of electronic games, then it may sound that we have a little bit undermined the value these games can have in education. Why not? It's fun, and if we sort it out and guide it properly, it can involve the benefits of both indirect teaching and self experiencing.

This paper is intended to present the possibilities on combining the teaching potentials of electronic games with moral education theories to result into having a more natural and enjoyable way of bringing children into the moral world.