Acting on a Taliban mandate, some 400 private schools in Pakistan’s northwest Swat Valley were closed down, ending the education of more than 40,000 students. The Swat Valley is yet another one among Taliban-controlled places where basic human rights are trampled upon.
The academe is a place where minds are wrought, reasoning skills are honed, and convictions are taught to be sharpened. In school, students learn basic moral principles. These are universal truths of good and bad that not even the critical thinker will tinker with. The critical thinker may weigh ‘moralistic’ dictum but will adhere to home truths in ethics and morality. The critical thinker will surely waste his time if he decides to investigate such universal moral truths as justice, human rights, ending ignorance, ending hunger, ending slavery and exploitation, etc. These are general moral principles.
The academe can teach the student to be a critical thinker towards solving the problems that impede the success of these general moral principles. Ethics says that justice should be universal and unconditional just as human rights should be. The critical thinker will not challenge that moral truth. Instead, he will investigate the facts as to why injustice and human rights violation exist, analyze what he discovers in his inquiry, formulate a scientific and scholarly conclusion, and come up with recommendations on how to better instill these moral truths.
True pillars of moral thought do not advocate indoctrinated thinking. They want people to accept moral ethics after they have processed these in their minds, and have come to the conclusion that these are, indeed, necessary for a better world. Students, therefore, need to hone their skills and train on moral reasoning so that indoctrination does not prosper. The world needs sound moral principles, not moral dogma. The academe is the best venue where the students can apply their filtered and processed judgments to eventually formulate insight into what genuine morality is as opposed to blind indoctrination and pseudo-morality that abounds in this world.
It is of utmost importance to hone students in analytical and critical thinking, as well as moral values. Students who come from an environment where these aspects are present are people with conviction, intellectual intelligence, emotional intelligence, professional attitude, and serious approach to life. Ethics and critical thinking combine best to make students be concerned with the wide world outside themselves, and selflessly beyond themselves – while constantly improving the self. These discerning individuals will surely advocate fairness and justice in life. The academe is the place where people learn about themselves and their environment before stepping into the big wide world of professional and organizational responsibility.
Critical thinking, when infused into ethics, will make the students realize that there are several factors, levels, layers, and variables in moral judgment. The students learn about the social, economic, cultural, and other aspects to be considered before anyone can truly apply moral principles on a situation that needs to be critically evaluated. Crime, social degradation, gender inequality, and racial discrimination are just some of the examples of immoral situations that need critical thinking to investigate and judge. With critical thinking in ethics, students learn to be people who will choose the future wisely.
These are precisely the reasons why the Taliban will not allow education to the people they aim to control.
Posted by GSerrano on April 7, 2009 in Critic, Society & Culture · 0 Comment
