The Limits of Moral Education

In the past week, two of Sydney’s private schools have been the focus of sexual assault accusations against their students.

I don’t want to dwell on these cases in particular, although I do want to express how terrible it must be for the alleged victims in each of these cases. I know only what I’ve read in the media, and justice must have its day in the fullness of time, but what we do know is that these girls and their families are suffering. And we do know, sadly that these cases are not outliers. Whether or not these cases are established to have happened, the fact is that there’ve been cases like this before and there no doubt will be again.

While the legal process must take its course, the public conversation has already seized upon more cultural and institutional factors. Do the schools have a culture of (say) toxic masculinity that we ought to do something about? Are they to some degree responsible for the actions of those within their ranks? Have they taught consent education? Have they taught it enough?

But here’s the problem, it seems to me. We expect our institutions to produce virtuous people. This is an almost universal hope: there are progressive and conservative versions of this ‘turn to character’ in education, but they share the same faith, that education can make better people.

There’s a particular problem for Christian schools in claiming to form the characters of their students. Church schools are in a competition to convince mostly secular parents of the difference that they will make for their children, often at a very high price. They are competing with a product that is essentially offer for almost free by the state.

Academic results are one point of difference. But another one is: that your child will emerge from here not merely cleverer but better: a more disciplined, courteous, responsible, resilient, better dressed, and morally serious person. Their selling point is character formation.

There are good reasons why parents find this an attractive option. In a morally fragmented culture, in which parental anxiety is ramped up, parents want institutions that will not just educate their children into a career but into a set of values to live by.

Who wouldn’t want that? But time and time again, something terrible happens - a sexual assault, a bullying case, an act of brazen cruelty, open racism - and suddenly the promise is turned against the institution. If you really were forming good men, then why do your boys behave like this? If you say you are able to shape character, then what do you say about the fruit you produce?

It is a good question.

And the first thing to say in response is that young people are not exclusively - or even primarily - morally formed by schools. Children are, for good or ill, the children of the parents. From birth, they are shaped by their parents’ prejudices and anxieties. Teenagers of course will deny that it is the case; and parents will wonder what influence they have. But it is observably true in my experience as a former schoolteacher, that kids come to school already shaped in a moral direction. They are not simply lumps of clay to moulded.

For our Eastern Suburbs schools, this is a particularly relevant observation because (having pastored in the area for more than decade), people’s virtues and vices are amplified by the high income, high status context. The Eastern Suburbs contains some of the most impressive people I’ve ever met and that anyone could ever meet: humble, generous, hard-working, committed to the common good. It also contains some of the most venal, selfish, wasteful, and entitled people I’ve ever met. The high-fee schools of the area draw their students from both kinds of families. And the virtues and vices of the surrounding culture inevitably enter the school gates. Some families see the school as an investment in the moral development of their children. Others see it as a ticket to social status and wealth.

This is not to deflect the call for culture change in our institutions, but rather to say that when schools make claims about inculcating virtue, they must take great care not to overstate what they can achieve. This overstatement brings us to where we are now: it is one thing for a boy who commits sexual assault to attend a school where no claim is made for exceptional character formation, but quite another for him to come from a school which is supposed to produce ‘good men’.

Parents cannot think that they can simply outsource the moral and personal development of their children. You can hire a tutor for every other subject, but a parent cannot dodge this responsibility. Parents cannot simply outsource the moral and personal development of their children and then treat the school as the sole custodian of their character.

Schools do profoundly influence children. I wholeheartedly believe that, or I wouldn’t have committed so much of my life to teaching, supporting, governing, and being an active parent at schools. Institutional cultures matter a great deal. Bad behaviour and entitlement can be normalised within schools. And the opposite is true: good behaviour can cultivate excellent habits.

But the causal story is far more complex than ‘bad boy = bad school’, or ‘good boy = good school’.

So what should or could schools claim instead? I would certainly not have schools give up on seeking to do what they can to cultivate human beings of good character. But I would especially urge Christian schools to beware of an overly optimistic anthropology. Contemporary education, as I’ve said, tends to believe that, given the right inputs, the right role models, and enough formation, you can produce a good person. Our private schools and their critics believe the same thing: that if students are misbehaving, they mustn’t be receiving the right teaching.

What has happened here is that we’ve secularised the Christian doctrine of sanctification while removing the Christian doctrine of sin. We’ve retained the fine ideals of virtue, discipline, service, integrity, and respect. What school wouldn’t want to teach those? But we’ve lost the fundamental but awkward Christian insight that the human heart is itself disordered.

Christianity doesn’t begin by proposing that children need better values. It begins by claiming that human beings (including children!) need redemption.

Why does this matter? Because it ought to make Christian schools especially humble. They cannot and should not claim ‘we produce better people’ - which is an untestable and unachievable claim.

It’s easy to see why Christian schools have turned to character formation. With the bulk of their families now not actively Christian in any meaningful sense, they are able to market their Christian identity by secularising it as ‘values’ or ‘character formation’ - which you don’t need a faith to buy in to. They are able to assuage the worries of parents that they will be too openly religious by pointing to the virtuous acquisition of Christian character without the embarrassing possibility that their child might actually start to believe in God.

Instead, I think church schools should claim something more like:

We seek to help young people understand what goodness is, practise it, take responsibility for others, and see themselves in the light of the Christian story: made in the image of God, fallen into sin, and yet loved and redeemable by God. They can learn that none of us is beyond the reach of sin, but even more that none of is beyond the love of God.

Christian theology is remarkably fit for purpose here. It says both that human beings are capable of extraordinary goodness, but also that human beings are capable of extraordinary evil. This is not just how we should understand others; it is how we should understand ourselves.

And this actually shapes what particular virtues and disciplines are necessary for forming humans. Christianity says that repentance and truthful confession are the foundation. The need to receive and to give forgiveness is fundamental. And the pattern of sacrificial love for the sake of the other is central.

I hope this argument will be seen not evading but actually raising the responsibility of institutions. Institutions can be held accountable for what they tolerate and what they reward; for what they hide and what they display. They model how to respond to victims and they should teach a moral language around sex and consent. They are responsible for making sure perpetrators are not protected from consequences.

Perhaps we’ve forgotten how difficult it is to produce good people. Schools matter enormously. But they cannot do it alone. Families, sporting clubs, friendship groups, and even governments have their part to pay. But none of these can manufacture virtue. The Christian insight is that humility is necessary. Wisdom is found in the knowledge that I am made for goodness, but terribly capable of evil. Education can keep me from doing my worst, and point me towards my best. But it alone cannot transform me.