Nigel McQuoid argues that the debate on moral issues in schools is fundamentally flawed

Built From the Roof Down

Nigel McQuoid argues that the debate on moral values in schools is fundamentally flawed.

©1997 The Christian Institute

The present call for a concerted push to re-emphasise the teaching of right and wrong in schools bears no small relation to the call for a house to be built from the roof down. Like much recent educational and intellectual thinking, the ends are widely proclaimed whilst we remain apparently still unaware of the means whereby we can achieve them. And when the "root causes" are pinpointed, be they combat knives, incompetent teachers or weak public leadership in politics, churches and families, there remains a lingering sense that these are really only bricks seeking their proper place. The growing sense is that something far more fundamental is missing at foundation level.

At present, there is no proclaimed vision as to where the absolute basis for the teaching of right and wrong is to be found. The present Government document under discussion for implementation of Moral Education within schools confirms the fog in which we currently stand. The apparent national wisdom is that 150 individuals are best placed to discuss and agree, with due deference to the sensitivities of all others around what must be an unusually large table, what we are to call "right" and "wrong". And we wonder why we are floundering!

This is not a debate about the possible route of the next multi-lane highway nor even about the design of the National School Curriculum for the next Millennium. Here we are in search of the Absolute Truths of what is "right" and what is "wrong" and yet any logical pursuit of Truth must begin with the recognition that such Truth cannot be created through human design. Human wisdom and opinion are close to the heart of all human conflict and yet this is where successive years of hedonism and individual relativism have taught us that moral Truth lies. This public misconception is now in the process of biting society's hand. Absolute Truth must stand outside of the human condition; it must be Truth and not merely opinion, it must be found by man rather than created by him. And such an Absolute cannot be relative to time, space, culture or religious belief; it must have been Truth at the beginning of time as it is today and as it will be two hundred years from now. The intelligentsia's dogma which preaches the necessity for morals to change with knowledge and "progress" is a thin and dishonourable disguise for DIY morality.

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For a highly successful inner-city Comprehensive school to attribute its success to its allegiance to the Absolute Truths of Biblical Christianity will therefore come as no shock to the nation, even though less than 5% of our students attend Church regularly. To teach children that they are developed mutations who evolved from something akin to a monkey as a result of a cataclysmic chemical accident and that death is the end of everything is hardly going to engender within them a sense of purpose, self-worth and respect. To present, however, the Truth that they were made by a loving and just God who sees every one of them as being of equal and real value and capable of achieving their best, and to speak of the life beyond death, creates an altogether more positive sense of responsibility, accountability and direction. Surely this is no surprise to anyone?

Of course, this is the very concept of foundation upon which any builder will rely before even contemplating the laying of his first brick. Sadly, there is often the feeling that questions within education, and in much thinking beyond, are treated as single issues and are not viewed in the light of a coherent philosophy capable of sustaining society. Too many key-note pronouncements appear to be borne of ad hoc expediency and opportunism. Rarely do policies resound as being well-founded, consistent and fundamentally "honourable".

Emmanuel College is an inner-city Comprehensive School seeking to deliver just such a fundamental approach to education for 1300 young people between 11 and 19 by basing itself squarely and publicly upon a practical outworking of a simple faith in the Absolute Truths of Biblical Christianity. We see the allegiance to revealed Truth above relativist and revisionist dogma as being the key element of success demonstrated by huge oversubscription, Public Examination Results in the region of 35% higher than the national average and a reputation for students who are renowned in the North-East as confident and decent young men and women.

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As a City Technology College, we are wholly funded by the Department for Education and Employment and have no official links with the Local Education Authorities which serve our Catchment Area across large parts of inner-city Gateshead, Newcastle and County Durham. Furthermore, our annual intake of 196 11-year olds is drawn predominantly from those living in the most economically-deprived areas of the inner-city and each intake must represent the full range of academic ability. This is no selective school from any perspective nor do we attract "huge additional funding" as our critics often seek to accuse. Indeed, we do not accept that funding is a relevant issue. Far more important is what your school stands for, how it treats its young people and how consistent those young people believe you to be.

We set our classes according to ability because this method gives children the best opportunity to reach and advance their true potential. Our strict uniform code is jealously guarded to establish the truth that people are equal in value regardless of their ability to afford the latest fashions. Our College finances are structured in such a way as to confidentially subsidise those who need help in funding the uniform. Our cashless meals system protects the identity of those on free meals and removes the temptations created when students carry large amounts of cash. Our code of discipline is plain and simple; rules are spelled out and those who break them are punished. We use detention to punish and we expel without question those who are proved to have brought illegal substances onto the premises, for whatever reason. We await with interest the developments surrounding the current debate on corporal punishment in the belief that, properly regulated and administered, it has the support of a large majority of parents. We totally abhor the legalisation of beating in rage and regret the polarisation that assimilates those who believe in corporal punishment as a specific and deterrent measure with those who are abusers and fetishists.

We refute the insidious links drawn between poverty and crime, between unemployment and anti-social behaviour. Far more real are the evidences that link the rise in criminal and anti-social activity with the demise in Christian social responsibility, the increasingly easy access to soft pornography and the rocketing rises in abortion and divorce rates. At Emmanuel we teach that a safe and wholesome society demands an awe of God, a respect for the right to life, sexual chastity before marriage and fidelity and commitment within it, and a high sense of personal morality and self-respect. We teach students to be analytical of the assumptions surrounding them and the motives of those with whom they come into contact be they in the pulpit or in parliament, in the soap opera or the supermarket.

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Everything we do and say is driven by the desire to be honourable to and consistent with the Biblical Truth that is our fundamental bedrock.

We believe passionately that our nation must not pass up the opportunity which has been presented to us through the public shock and shame of the killing of Philip Lawrence. It was, after all, through the death of the incarnate Son of God that personal salvation came to mankind and upon which base, through the regeneration of us as individuals, we might build a true and lasting society.

Not only does our Education System require fundamental review, it also needs to return to fundamentals and away from those who seek only the philosophical justification for us all to do simply what is right in our own eyes. But of course, "fundamental" is a dirty word and we are often too preoccupied with the roofs.

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