Ethics and Civility should be taught in elementary schools

I was watching Al Gore the other day and suddenly a thought entered my mind. We have it all wrong here in North America.

Asking people - notably adults - to change their habits is an impossible task. Whenever a society is met with a problem - legitimate or otherwise - activists who want to fix it mobilize and take their message out. The more effective ones will make it to the top of the public advertising list. A campaign of awareness and education (and in some cases scare tactics) follows. From there, they will attempt to convince government to legislate and force people to change.

The results are often miserable. Why?

We employ a top-down approach to matters of concern. In other words, rather than educate at the elementary level we aim to convince those too far into their lives to sway. Changing values and belief systems and breaking habits makes the top-down approach futile - and in some cases irritating.

In North America, we tend to be a reactionary society when it comes to issues and problems. We are not properly educated to see things from an organic state using vision. Very few of us have ever heard of the universal principal when, for example, we drive in traffic. If people would be patient, observe certain rules of conduct and etiquette, they would find that traffic would flow better. I noticed this in Europe. From what I have observed, there is a certain common courtesy on the roads that exists, that no one is willing to compromise.

We also see this problem in matters of finance and economics. It is no longer comical but frightening to listen and read not only civilians but also even journalists awkwardly discusses economics. The basic tenets and laws of economics are shockingly ignored.

So whenever we are asked to make a change, although we are capable of understanding the problem, we are incapable or unwilling to make the necessary adjustments because we were caught too late in life, and were not taught that in a civil society we all have to play our role to ensure the advancement of our communities.

Have you ever held a door open for someone and that person did not think to thank you? In today's world, and I hear this a lot with young people, the justification for not thanking a person who thoughtfully holds the door for you is that "no one asked you." These are the same people who demand respect while giving very little themselves.

Among my favorite courses in College were the collective courses of Humanities. Dismissed as an elective nuisance for extra credit, these courses were crucial in the development of a well-rounded intellectual mind. On average, students hated them. The most fervent among them were those from engineering and business departments. They saw no use in them.

Today, people are becoming more and more disengaged. Call it moral relativism in a postmodern society or whatever. We have been taught that individual thought begins and ends with the self. There is no need to think of the society any longer. Challenge any existing ethos; as long as you come up with it no one can tell you it is wrong. This leads us to exhibits A and B - celebrities such as Paris Hilton and some modern athletes who seem incapable of evolving as upstanding members of the community at large despite their vast wealth. Wealth accords you privileges. To squander it for immediate self-gratification is to fail as a human being.

Intellectual merit has become relative - life has become relative.

As it stands, building a civil society is left in the hands of parents (who seem to be more and more disinterested in taking up the responsibility) and individual teachers. If you were lucky enough to have a great teacher, then you were likely to have received some instruction on how to live. If you weren't so lucky...

This is why I strongly advocate teaching ethics and civil philosophy at an early age. The younger the better. Implant the rules of civility into our kids. Without being exposed to it how can we expect them to be enlightened citizens of the world? By extension, I also believe we need special academic schools for our civil service. Civil servants are supposed to not only reflect the personality of a nation but they can also serve to enlighten citizens.

An ethics and civil course for young citizens would cover all the little things that multiply in a society. After all, it's thelittle things thatmatter. It would teach good manners and it would guide people, among other things, to understand that compromise is not a sign or weakness.

This is not a means to making us smarter. The dimwitted and careless who live among us and who lack curiosity will always exist. It is rather a way to simply remind us all that when we leave our homes we enter a society. And how our society functions is determined by how we behave. If our lowest common denominator is the majority then it is incumbent on us to rectify it.