Evaluation of moral values through
reading among school students during pandemic
Students are the operator of any developmental trend and activity in society and major determinants of the extent of growth in any nation. Values and ethics should not be taught directly to students but proper nurturing of cognitive honesty in students’ minds will help to enrich their potentiality of knowledge, morality, values and ethics.
Moral and ethical values are pillars of a modern educational society. It helps to set the direction of human life and reflect our sense of right and wrong and play an important role for overall development of society. Students are pride of any society. Moral degradation of youth is an important problem of modern era. Moral values are the worthy principles. Our young generation can only get them through experience and are influenced by education tools such as reading of various books, and activities etc.
Sangita Karar is Librarian at Delhi Public School Newtown, Kolkata. She is a versatile and dynamic person with excellent analytical, communication and inter-personal skills having rich and diverse experience in different
organizations. Her interests include Library Management System, Digital Library, Preservation And Conservation of Documents and Improvement of Higher Education System Through Life Long Learning. Her qualifications
include MLIS and Advanced BLIS from Calcutta University
But in present time the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic loss of human life worldwide. It is the duty of educational agents like schools, teachers, and parents to provide values to students through participation in interactive and co-operative learning activities to provide them the brightened side of life for better future.
Role of school and reading to enhancement moral values:
At present the concept of schools’ classrooms are converted into digital classrooms due to pandemic. Educators have to develop moral value based environments and promote ethical-moral literacy by offering relevant and attractive reading materials at all literacy levels among students and this education not only gives a platform for success, but it is also essential to integrate valuable moral and social skills and help to develop a more humanistic management approach.
Recent situation :
Degradation of moral values among students as well as young generation is a contemporary issue and due to pandemic currently more than 1.2 billion students in 186 countries affected by school closures. Our society is dynamic not static so due to drastic changes such as modernization, urbanization, rapid globalization, modern lifestyles bought so many problems that are responsible for degrading ethical and moral values.
Factors of moral degradation :
At present we all are maintaining social distancing and teachers may not be meeting with students in person so youth have been captured by youthful desires, arrogance, disrespect, disobedience and indiscipline. This has directly been importing both moral degradation of youth and social deteriorate as well.
a) Nuclear family: In a nuclear family, especially where parents are doing work from home; they have no time to share with their child. The feelings and emotions of child are discouraged.
b) Attraction of modernization: Due to pandemic, dynamic modernization through various digital platforms have spread over the younger generation of the society. Thus students have gone far from their own identity, tradition and cultural heritage.
c) Influence of social media: In 21st century we all are blessed with internet blogs, websites, Facebook, twitter, online cinemas etc. But Covid -19 pandemic is likely to enhance the risk of addictive social media use and there are so much unrefined news in mass media which can create negative impact on our next generation.
d) Desire of self exhibition: Desire of self exhibition often takes a student towards unethical behaviour.
Our society is dynamic not static so
due to drastic changes such as
modernization, urbanization, rapid
globalization, modern lifestyles
bought so many problems that are
responsible for degrading ethical
and moral values
Transformation from degradation to evaluation of moral values through reading:
Simply the present scenario can be changed if parents and educators work together during this time. They have to maintain the balance of time management and quality time spending with children.
Some suggestions for evaluation of moral values
• Encourage to read more and more books for moral values through digital classrooms.
• Moral values can be described through stories and illustrations.
• Through basic literatures we can inculcate moral values in the students.
• Develop the imaginative skill.
• Educate students through posters, almanacs, fact books, guidebooks, handbooks etc.
• Introduce course training to students to develop moral values in the society.
Actually morality preserves life and it is a lifestyle that is consistent with human’s comprehensive values.
Importance of moral value based reading for improvement of moral degradation:
a) Literacy for moral development through reading: Literacy can be improved, when students get practice in moral and ethical values in the beginning by books on moral and occupies their attention. Now the digital classroom is a common platform where all students meet on common levels of moral development with equal opportunities.
b) Making lifelong learners: School is a place where all students find stress free atmosphere and are encouraged to grow and learn. Similarly through online classes, educators have to motivate to read beyond textbooks and provide a safe paradise for all students to explore moral values.
Role of educators and parents for implementation of moral skills:
Only reading is not one and only way, equally parents and school teachers have to act as a facilitator way to improve moral values. Students have great monitoring power. They observe their parents at home and their teachers at digital classroom’s platform and always replicate what they observe and this practice builds their character so facilitators must think to stay a step ahead of children to upgrade their moral values. It is the most important duty of facilitators. If a child observes his facilitators to be truthful and honest, then they will also mop up some of their morality.
Moral values and reading resources collaboration to promote evaluation of value based education – present statistics:
Educators and parents are responsible for governing moral skills of where students are and what they require to read, having insights into students’ special necessity and growth of successful life.
Moral Value based collection development through e-books: Teachers can communicate with the school librarian for various resources of moral value that keep digital library collection current and relevant to the curriculum and school context. The student input is also very important in this context.
Provide digital library services for E-reading: E-reading is a wonderful gift by the present day technological advancements and innovations. As a facilitator, teacher should provide details of various databases of moral value based e-documents and vast areas of information available in various formats.
Impact of social media based curriculum: Facilitators can help students to realize the genuine use of digital technology based value education via Twitter, Google drive, Skype and other cloud-based platforms to learn moral skills. So any time (24×7 hours) students, teachers and parents can communicate and share their idea with each other from their home.
On a concluding note…
Today our zestful society is undergoing a sea-change. As educational agents, the modern days’ schools’ digital reading classes are must be bridge gap between young generation, moral learning system and facilitators through technology based online education system especially during this pandemic era and that enables the end user to effectively and efficiently gain all skills for a better future of today’s growing information society.