Moral development is one of the fundamental features that describe the essence of man. To develop morally is an opportunity inherent only to man and, therefore, is an absolutely necessary and obligatory process that must accompany a person throughout his life. Therefore, moral education, which begins in childhood, is so important.
The moral development of the child begins in the family, continues at school and should not stop at any stage of life.
When organizing certain work aimed at moral education, the means and ways of educating morality have their own specifics. In particular, the school should cultivate morality, based on the possibilities of finding a child in a team . Communication with peers and teachers, joint activities are able to form moral habits and qualities of a social and socially significant nature.
Spiritually moral education has several functions:
· Forms a general idea of the moral values of life and culture;
· Affects the acquisition of moral ideas, views, concepts, estimates and judgments, which can lead to the development of their own independent judgments;
· Contributes to the understanding and rethinking of their own life experiences of students;
· Is able to make adjustments to the misconceptions about morality obtained from dubious sources;
· Helps self-education of the person.
The school has a number of opportunities to present children with knowledge and ideas about morality. The moral upbringing of children is her professional priority. As a rule, school opportunities come down to fairly standard forms, but many years of experience prove the viability of the activities. However, the school can be blamed for inertness and traditionalism, however, many teachers are constantly introducing new forms of work that are more effective than traditional ones.
The following can be said about the arsenal of the approved forms of the school’s influence on the morale of students. The most common ways of its influence are:
- Conversations
- disputes;
- theme nights;
- meetings with representatives of various professions, veterans, etc .;
- Conferences
- collective fees, etc.
During educational activities, the age and personality characteristics of schoolchildren, their moral experience, and moral upbringing inherent in the family are taken into account.
Teachers are called upon to clarify moral standards when relying on worldview knowledge and specific examples that can be understood and learned by a student at a level appropriate to their development. Especially effective are measures that can cause ethical feelings and, therefore, be close and understandable to children .
The school pays special attention to the development of moral values among students, such as:
- need for labor
- need for communication
- the need for the development of cultural values ,
- the need for the development of cognitive abilities, etc.
Numerous educational school events are aimed at this, which, in addition to the lesson, include extracurricular activities, as well as all kinds of field activities outside the school as such.
The value of the latest forms of education lies in the maximum proximity of activities to real life, which makes the work of teachers almost invisible to children and perceived as exciting walks and trips. During such events, the instilling of values and the development of moral qualities occurs in the most natural way. Hence the great effectiveness of this type of work of teachers.
Moral education requires teachers to be able to:
- to create conditions in which the child has to make a moral choice of a method of action;
- influence children in a certain way, form new moral habits in them;
- to understand the essence of contradictions in the development of children's moral needs and to help resolve them in an effective educational way.