I’ve been teaching Primary Ethics for 5 school terms now (a term is a quarter year) since I began in April last year. In 2017 I taught the Year 4 class. I’d hoped to move to Year 5 in 2018 so that I could have many of the same children, but due to a wave of teacher retirements I was assigned Year 6 at the beginning of this year.

Year 6 is the oldest kids at the primary school, so the most mature, around 11 years old. As one would expect, they generally have better concentration skills and are more interested in discussing the sorts of topics that we teach in the classes. So it’s been pretty good for the past two terms.

Topics we’ve discussed so far this year are:

• What makes a fair society? What makes an unfair society?
• What are human rights? Where do they come from? Should animals have rights too?
• Fatalism: Is the future predestined, no matter what we choose to do?
• Does it matter what other people believe? Should we respect other people’s beliefs, even if we don’t agree with them, or if they are harmful?
• Determinism: Do we have free will, or are our choices determined by our circumstances? And if our choices are determined, are we responsible for our actions?

Some of it is pretty heavy stuff for kids this age, but the curriculum is designed to introduce the topics in ways they can understand, and they’ve been enjoying it.

Then yesterday I got an email from one of the other Ethics teachers (the Year 2 teacher), who has a son in Year 4, and who took my class for me a few weeks ago when I was holidaying in Tanzania:

David I keep meaning to tell you that my son (Year 4) when I told him I was taking your Year 6 class said “Mr Morgan’s class? Everyone wants him he’s the best Ethics teacher”.

Needless to say: wow, cool! Clearly the Year 6 kids have been telling everyone how much they enjoy their classes with me. So I’m pretty chuffed!

Here in Australia, scripture is still taught in schools. One of the problems with this is that scripture classes eat up some of the scheduled classroom time, and children whose parents don’t want them to attend religious education are specifically not allowed to do anything during that time which might give them an academic advantage over students attending scripture. So the students not attending scripture are typically not allowed to use that time to study, or do homework, or do anything else that might be “educational” in some sense. Often they just sit in a room and watch videos.

About 15 years ago, a group of people decided to do something about that and offer secular ethics classes during this time when other students are doing scripture. Since the scripture classes purport to be offering ethical education, it couldn’t be argued that the non-scripture children were doing anything additional.

However, this campaign fell foul of religious interest groups, who felt that ethical instruction without religion was inherently evil or something. The religious groups fought long and hard to have secular ethics classes banned from schools.

I’m pleased to say, however, that they lost the fight and some years back a completely non-government-funded volunteer group called Primary Ethics was granted permission by the NSW Department of Education to offer ethics classes as an alternative to religious scripture in New South Wales primary schools. The curriculum very specifically does not attempt to teach children “what is right” or “what is wrong” – rather it teaches them skills in critical thinking, and that many issues are complex and that not everyone agrees on what is right or wrong, and the value of considering things from other people’s points of view.

Since its inception, Primary Ethics has grown to be extremely popular, with many parents (including many religious ones) wishing to enrol their children in ethics classes. The problem is, being non-funded, Primary Ethics needs volunteers to actually teach the courses.

Recently, I volunteered to become an ethics teacher, and I just completed my training (which includes federal police background checks and clearance to work with children). I will be starting tomorrow, with a class of Year 4 students (about 9 years old). I’m proud to volunteer my time to teach a new generation of people the principles of ethics and critical thinking, and I hope they all go on to become better adults because of my efforts.