Designing And Implementing Moral Education In Romanian Primary School

Abstract

Moral education is a complex activity through which the individual is transformed, both cognitively and especially in an affective-volitional way. Teachers exert a strong moral influence on students, not only making them behave in a certain way, but also making them want to do so. Through the present research, we aimed to find out whether the teachers receive training that supports them in designing and carrying out moral education activities, and to identify the way in which they are carried out in primary school. We administered an opinion questionnaire to 161 primary school teachers and conducted a series of analyses based on the responses. The research revealed that 35.4% of the respondents think that they did not receive a proper initial training, meant to support them in the activities of moral education they carry out with students, and even the offer of the programmes of continuous education for this segment is not satisfactory for 32.9% of them, and 46.6 % think that no importance is attached to this side of education. The sources used to design moral education activities are examples of good practice (80.1%), websites for teachers (73.9%) and personal experience (73.3%), while methodological guides and journals are the least used (31.7% and 21.1%, respectively). As moral education methods, teachers prefer moral conversation, moral example, didactic play, and explanatory reading, and the method that is used most rarely is dramatization.