It is difficult to deny that the social life of school-aged children is vastly different than it was thirty years ago. Everywhere we see evidence of increasing youth violence, teen pregnancy, substance abuse, collapsing families, and of decreasing civility in everyday life. Some would argue that we are simply better informed than we once were. Yet the consensus both among scholars and among the citizenry is that we are witnessing a growing trend toward "ethical anarchy" (Starratt, 1993).

Even the most liberal observer would have been taken aback by the Globe and Mail article outlining what for many is an example of the commodification of family responsibility. "Moulding Children Oprah-Style" describes the entrepreneurial efforts of Andrea Shulman, a young Toronto woman who is currently making a living by teaching children about virtue. Shulman sees her work as replacing the work of parents "too busy" to do it, and she is hoping to franchise her operations under the banner of "Success for Kids".

Those with an eye to history know that the current "moral panic" is not a first and neither are the reform efforts of those who seek to shape the characters of other people's children. In fact, a similar crisis in Ontario at the turn of the last century has been depicted (Churchill, 1992). At that time middle-class moralists feared that an urban, sedentary, and secular lifestyle was having ill effects on family life and on the moral development of children. In such a climate character-building institutions based upon middle-class, Anglo-Protestant notions of proper behaviour - such as the scouting movement and Canadian Girls in Training - flourished. These institutions helped allay the fears of the middling classes about the new industrial order and the increasingly diverse cultural mosaic, both of which threatened their place in the social structure.

Such studies reveal much about the values that motivate those who feel and foster the sense of moral alarm. Yet during each of these times of moral panic another group is eager to celebrate the break from the past and blaze the trail to a new social order. The feminist movement of the last thirty years is a case in point. Many celebrate the increased equality women have experienced; others argue that the feminist movement is yet another sign of the culture's over-emphasis on rights at the expense of responsibilities.

But if moral panics are not new, neither are the fundamental questions that underlie the ensuing personal, organizational and community responses: Whose values do we teach? How do we teach them? Whose responsibility is it to teach values? What role should character education play in our schools?

This paper examines current educational responses to the perceived crisis. First under the microscope is the traditional approach to character building, an approach based on prescribed methods to modify behaviours in accordance with established lists of desired value goals. Next, this paper examines the progressive, community-oriented approach to building ethical schools, based more on process than outcome, an approach that tries to respond to specific schools' needs and circumstancess. Begley's (2000) list of good questions to ask about theories, practices and organizational models is referred to throughout. These questions include: Which value perspectives are represented? Is there a value articulation versus actual value commitment? Do these perspectives perpetuate the myth of value consistency? How are ethics employed?

The Traditionalist Perspective on Character Education

As Helwig (1997) describes, traditionalists attribute what they see as a crisis of character in present society to the demise of the traditional family, 1960's "cultural residue", radical individualism, feminism, and the like. They seek a return to moral standards, a process that they see as difficult or impossible as long as schools continue to act value "neutral".

James Hunter (2000), an American professor of sociology and religious studies, begins his intriguing book, The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil , with an impassioned attack on the relativist approach to values education. Hunter details the difficulties inherent in the present generation's way back to "character":

We say we want a renewal of character in our day but we don't really know what we ask for. To have a renewal of character is to have a creedal order that constrains, limits, binds, obligates and compels. This price is too high for us to pay. We want character but without conviction; we want strong morality but without the emotional burden or guilt of shame; we want virtue but without particular moral justifications that invariably offend; we want good without having to name evil; we want decency without the authority to insist upon it; we want moral community without any limitations to personal freedom. In short we want what we cannot possibly have on the terms that we want it (xv).

For Hunter, and for other traditionalists, in our post-World War II journey through relativism, morality has been reduced to the thinnest of clichés. As Brooks and Goble (1997) describe it, since teachers lack support and training in character education principles and techniques, they turn to ethical relativism by default. The stance that "it is inappropriate to teach ethical concepts because such concepts vary from place to place, person to person and time to time" (27) leaves little guidance for students to make moral decisions.

So what do traditionalists have in mind when they speak of character education?

Lickona (1999) seems to provide the most comprehensive approach to character education offered by the conventionally minded. "Character education is the deliberate effort to cultivate virtue" (78). Moreover, argues Lickona:

Character must be broadly conceived to encompass cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of morality: moral knowing, moral feeling, and moral action. Good character consists of knowing the good, desiring the good, and doing the good habits of mind, of the heart and habits of behaviour. We want young people to be able to judge what is right, care deeply about what is right, and then do what is right – even in the face of pressure from without and temptation from within (78).

Few would argue with such a statement. However, traditionalists usually employ specific means to achieve these stated goals, means that downplay the cognitive aspect of character building in favour of behavioural methods. It is this behavioural focus that draws criticism of the traditional approach.

The Character Counts Coalition is a typical example of the traditional character education program available to schools in the United States. Sponsored by the Josephson Institute of Ethics in Marina del Rey, California, the purpose of the coalition is to "fulfill the lives of America's young people with consensus ethical values called the Six Pillars of Character". These values, the coalition argues, "transcend divisions of race, creed, politics, gender and wealth" and are: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, care and citizenship. Moreover, the Institute, according to its Internet website, is explicit about its stance on the nature of values:

The coalition wants to overcome the false, but surprisingly powerful notion that no single value is intrinsically superior to another; that ethical values vary by race, class, gender and politics; that greed and fairness, cheating and honesty carry the same moral weight, simply depending on one's perceptions and immediate needs (select "About Us").

So, self-esteem, the buzzword in education for the past few years, and other personal value preferences, take second place to the "objective outcomes of virtue" espoused by the Institute and its subscriber schools.

Apparently, no materials or preparation is required for character lessons. In one example, the teacher is simply instructed to have the students sit in a quiet place and respond to the question "What does the pursuit of excellence mean?" After fielding responses, the teacher is instructed to clarify exactly what excellence is, and to include several exhortations including: "People who give up easily do not have exciting or fulfilling lives; they act as if nothing matters very much – as if they don't matter very much."

According to Thomas (1991), the traditionalist paradigm makes some major assumptions. First is the theory that historically there has been a basic set of values and ethics that has guided the social interactions of people and helped them make clear choices between what is right and what is wrong. So moral laws are not subjects of private opinion, instead they reflect essential qualities that civilizations throughout history have agreed upon.

The second postulation of traditionalists according to Thomas (1991) is that observable conduct (behaviour) is more important as an indicator of good character than the ability to reflect upon and to rationalize moral ideas. In other words, character is doing the "good", not justifying your position. So the formation of habits in children and youth is important to these writers.

The third assumption flows from the second. Habits have to be transmitted to be internalized and the common virtues must be practiced in homes, schools, churches and communities (Benninga & Wynne 1998). This view holds that habit-orientated instruction and practice will build a strong moral foundation in children until they reach a stage of life when they will be reasoning for themselves (Thomas, 1991). By that time, assures Lickona (1999), "habits of the mind, habits of the heart and habits of action" will have become second nature (78).

Of tremendous importance to traditionalists is the assumption that extrinsic rewards (and conversely, punishments) and modeling are both important for shaping good character. This is what Van Orden (2000) refers to as the direct approach to character education, an approach that advocates: rewards for proper behaviours, instruction through role-play, discussion of conceptual definitions, the enforcement of discipline codes, and the imparting of moral content directly at students (18). Key to this assumption is that teachers and other character builders will be models of virtue themselves. And, these people in authority will, according to Brooks and Goble (1997), provide exposure in classrooms to historical and literary figures who symbolize the virtues of courage, honesty, and the like, that are to be celebrated. Hunter (2000) summarizes this view in the following manner:

Many advocate the study of history and literature, legends, folk tales, so that desirable behaviours might be underscored and because it may stimulate the moral intelligence and creativity of young students and educate them in moral complexities by placing themselves in the shoes of others (111-112).

Of course, as Hunter notes, the choice of stories is dictated by adults, so the "anchor" provided for students "serves the purpose of uniting the similarities and downplaying the differences that liberals choose to champion" (111-112).

Finally, according to Thomas (1991), another assumption made by traditionalists is that their efforts have an impact on academics and behaviours. They admit that assessment itself is a difficult task (see Corley, 2000 and Otten 2000) and that more work needs to be done in this area. Traditionalists argue that where character programmes have been introduced there have been corresponding increases in school attendance, improved discipline and even changing standards about right and wrong actions. Furthermore, it is assumed than that such programming has or will have positive impacts upon social problems such as suicide, drug abuse, homicide and out-of-wedlock births (Thomas, 1991). Admittedly, argues Corley (2000), many of the character programmes are new and much of the assessment may be subject to the Hawthorne or Pygmalion effect, so long-term studies will be required. Nonetheless, many under the traditional umbrella are satisfied with the limited positive anecdotal evidence of enthusiastic administrators, faculty and parents.

A Critique of the Traditional Perspective
Of course the inherent difficulty in the traditional approach concerns the question of whose values are being taught and whether in a pluralistic society there exist "universal" values which are shared by all. As Begley (2000) argues, even those who claim the existence of universal values come to the debate carrying specific traditions, histories, and political persuasions. In the case of character education, Helwig (1997) argues that those who seek the return to traditional methods are conservatives with a hidden political agenda who seek a return to a "narrow indoctrinative pedagogy, rather than a flourishing of educational practices and contexts likely to lead to genuine moral growth" (1). Moreover, he argues, "claims of moral crisis and societal degeneration romanticize the past, obscure the present, and yield inadequate direction for what is needed" (7).

The work of conservatives like William Kilpatrick would seem to justify this critique. Kilpatrick (1996) reveals his own biases in lamenting the decline of direct moral instruction. He leaves the reader with the impression that life was much better in a former age. For Kilpatrick, common core ethics relate to the principles of the American Constitution, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and justice. There are consensus values as well, including honesty, self-respect and perseverance. Kilpatrick is convinced of the existence of a clear set of cultural ideals that could assimilate "newcomers" into overarching structures and frameworks, and equally clear are the parallels between his position and the agenda of Christian conservatives in the United States. In fact, Kilpatrick's preferential values come to the fore when he asserts that his vision of common school cultures and common behavioral expectations are in line with the Western Judeo-Christian tradition, which he sees as running counter to the current "celebration" of multiculturalism and diversity. Character education may only work in private schools, notes Kilpatrick, as there it is "understood that one's ethnicity should be subordinate to the more important traditions, spiritual and philosophical, that give the school its moral authority" (3).

Tissler (2000) adds to the discussion of who determines desirable values. Even if you managed to come up with a definitive list of values, he argues, not all parties would agree on the definition or interpretation of each value. Various definitions abound for honesty, and some would advocate that there are times to be dishonest in order to protect someone else's feelings. Likewise what some traditionalists value as responsibility others may view as mindless obedience.

Perhaps, the best-articulated and most comprehensive challenge to the traditionalist approach comes from Alfie Kohn. In the February 1997 issue of Phi Delta Kappan , Kohn's article, "How Not To Teach Values: A Critical Look at Character Education," is scathing on the subject. "What goes by the name of character education," he lambasted:

is for the most part, a collection of exhortations and extrinsic inducements designed to make children work harder and do what they are told. Even when other values are also promoted – caring or fairness, say – the preferred method of instruction is tantamount to indoctrination. The point is to drill students in specific behaviours rather than engage them in deep, critical reflection about certain ways of being (1).

Kohn's attack focuses on specific problem areas fundamental to his more liberal values. Traditionalists speak of respect, responsibility, and citizenship, argues Kohn, but these terms are actually subject to widely differing interpretations. In fact, states Kohn, they are frequently translated into "uncritical deference for authority" (6). Kohn suggests that the traditionalists do not have student's best interest at heart. Instead, by advocating for traditions such as a commitment to the Protestant work ethic, they discourage students from questioning the "value of what they have been told to do but simply to toil away at it – and to regard this as virtuous" (6). Of course, this is related to the unstated goals of the traditionalists, argues Kohn, amounting to neo-conservative concerns for social and political stability and the growth of a future compliant labour force.

Kohn also questions the value arena at which character education and curricular advocates address problems. He argues that only the narrow-minded would blame individuals for the erosion of traditional virtues or values and in the process ignore the bigger picture. Kohn points to the social context – including issues of unemployment, lack of funding for public education and the unbalanced concentration of wealth – as the actual source for societal flux. Traditionalists have a "stunningly dark view of children" in that they see behavioural problems stemming from sheer willfulness, an idea based upon the Judeo-Christian doctrine of original sin(5).

Ultimately, Kohn takes issue with the theory of learning utilized by the traditionalists. The argument here is that students are depicted as objects to be manipulated in the quest for indoctrinating good habits. Character education is geared toward prepackaged "drill and kill" exercises that lend themselves to teachers walking through highly structured lessons in which character-related concepts are illustrated and kids are coached until they parrot the correct responses. So while traditionalists may articulate that they have the best interests of children in mind, Kohn argues that what they really value is mindless, unreflective compliance. Fortunately, says Kohn, the traditionalist effort is largely self-defeating, since unless the child has been invited into the learning process, there is little commitment and ultimately little effect.

A Patchwork Quilt: The Community-Minded Response
While Kohn does a good job of critiquing the prescriptive focus of traditionalists, he offers only a tentative solution. However, since Kohn's proposals reflect the basic tenants at the heart of the community-minded approach they are worth stating here. His suggestions include the holding of regular meetings to share, plan, decide, and reflect and the holding of open-ended dialogues in response to the values to be discovered within the canons of English literature and history.

Goldsmith-Conley (1999) agrees with Kohn, but suggests that the re-structuring of the classroom and the instruction therein must only be the beginning. For her, the hidden curriculum is key and any notions of the caring community must take the unspoken agendas of schools into account. In other words, school rituals, staff meetings parent-teacher interactions, assemblies, hallway behaviours, student governance opportunities, and even bathroom routines must show care and respect for all members of the community.

However, if we are to take the "community-minded" at face value all of this adds up to moral education with a concern for process, or character through the back door, if you will. Its goal is to engender empathy, create awareness of social issues, and to help students find their place in social life. Hence, character education becomes broadly focussed and encompasses various efforts from civics education to conflict resolution training to health education to moral reasoning (see Jones, Ryan & Bohlin, 1999 for an extensive list).

For authors like Brown (1998), Fouhey & Saltmarsh (1996) and Boss (1995), what takes place outside of the classroom fosters much of student character. These scholars champion service learning as a route to inculcating values and ethics in students. As Boss states, "in order to transcend the egoistic morality of early childhood thinking, students need real-life opportunities" (20). She suggests that when community service learning is combined with a program of ethics education, the result is an effective means of "enhancing students' personal, social, and moral development as well as their academic performance" (20).

What does such programming require? According to Boss (1995) it requires opportunities for students' social disequilibrium (radically different social contexts such as nursing homes and soup kitchens) and for their cognitive disequilibrium (opportunities to talk about real life experiences, not just hypothetical ones). In this manner, students can reflect on their experiences as they nurture their own moral sense through guided discussion. Through reflective exercises like journal writing (where students can monitor their own moral development) and through teacher modelling and community connections, students are provided an opportunity to exercise compassion for others and foster their own sense of self in the process.

Similarly, Power (1997) sees a way out of the impasse, or at least some hope at the end of the road. He argues that character education must start with an appreciation of how character itself is formed. "Static views of character education that emphasise rewards and punishments, moral exemplars, and strong authority" are not the answer, argues Power. Instead we need to understand that the best approach to character education is one that provides a "communal environment" including:

...support of the virtues of trust, care, participation, and responsibility. I believe that it is also essential that students have opportunities to participate in decisions about the discipline of the classrooms and the school, such participation affirms their sense of intrinsic self-worth while at the same time underscoring their responsibilities as members of an academic community. This democratic participation provides and apprenticeship in the virtues, encourages students to form good habits and make sound decisions with the guidance of their teachers (9).

This broader approach to character education which concerns itself with the apparent "rampant individualism" in current society finds its roots in the values clarification movement, so disliked by traditionalists and described by Titus (1994) as "the most popular character education of the 1970's" (3). The values clarification approach sought to have students clarify their own values by following a step-by-step valuing process. According to Titus:

In values clarification teachers were non-judgmental of student values. For fear of influencing students, teachers were to respect whatever values the students arrived at. Values clarification came under heavy criticism, however, because it failed to differentiate between personal preference and moral values. No distinction was made between right and wrong; values were clarified not taught (3).

As Titus contends, research into the effectiveness of values clarification and moral reasoning curricula indicates that while there was some influence on student thinking, such programming had little effect on student behaviour (3). For example, in the cases of affective education related to substance abuse and positive, health-related attitudes toward sex, students became more aware of the value issues involved and in many cases more tolerant of the variety of views held, but there has been little observable effect on drug/alcohol use and teen sexual conduct (3).

According to its supporters, the community-minded approach is more sophisticated than a simple values clarification approach. As Titus suggests, only value-based education involving schools, parents, and community shows much potential for affecting students' attitudes and promoting responsible actions (4). Thus, decisions about values are contextualized within the organization and community and all stakeholders are in support. Usually, this is a process that begins with a values audit of the organization and climaxes in a statement of the values important to the organization, the people in it and the community supporting it.

The question arises as to whether schools can actually be communities coalescing around shared values. Here the work of Kenneth Strike (1999) brings some hope to the community-minded in merging the need for shared values as a basis of community with the premises of liberal inclusiveness. In striking a balance between values that are 'thick' enough to sustain a sense of belonging and "thin" enough to be inclusive, Strike suggests the adoption of the comprehensive doctrines of democracy and caring as ways of creating broad communities with united goals. Whereas Kilpatrick suggested that only private schools could satisfy the aims of character education because they alone could provide a community orientation around objective beliefs, Strike argues that public schools can still do the job. "We might instead explore the middle ground," argues Strike:

We can build more free association and hence more space for constitutive values into public schools and public space. We can emphasise constitutive values that are thick, but vague. If we do we can affirm those public values such as tolerance and avoid some of the pitfalls of more aggressive forms of privatisation (68).

Like the traditionalists, Starratt sets Building an Ethical School: Practical Responses to the Moral Crisis in Schools against the backdrop of growing "ethical anarchy" and asks whether its possible to have an ethical school? He believes that we can, despite the existing questions: Whose values? Whose responsibility? Whose methods? Generally, schools already reveal a host of favoured values, reasons Starratt, including a preference towards radical individualism, competition, rationality, conformity to authority, and the like. So part of his plan for improving the character of students is simply to reframe the work already being done in schools.

For Starratt, these current values (many of which are also among the desired goals of the traditionalists) are hardly a proper foundation for an ethical school, as they tend to undermine collective efforts, paralyse a sense of engagement in acquiring knowledge, and undercut the development of a Samaritan ethic. Instead, an ethical school is built upon the ethical members of the organisation, who balance degrees of autonomy with connectedness and transcend their own self-interest by fostering an appreciation and understanding of the circumstances of others.

Starratt puts forth three types of ethical questions as a guide toward autonomy, connectedness and transcendence. The ethic of critique, the ethic of justice and the ethic of care become the organisers shaping Starratt's ethical school. Using these frames, educators would continually put their motivations and actions to the test both in classrooms and in the organisation's structures, asking such questions as: who benefits from the current context? (critique); how will decisions be made? (justice); and, how do our actions benefit others? (care). The result, claims Starratt, would be a school that fosters ethical guidance and understanding, and it would be rooted in the notion that ethics are learned only by practising them. Moreover, in this ideal scenario these values would be sweeping, as they would become embedded both in academics and extra-curricular activities, and they would be supported by administrative practice, school routines, rituals and the like.

A Critique of the Community Approach
Of course the community-centred approach has its own warts. At times, it seems to drip with naïve idealism. By its very nature, the methodology remains vague and ambivalent, and with no marked quantity. Certainly, opponents of the community approach challenge the sense of value relativism that remains, as they would attack most "soft", organic, and collaborative approaches to organisations. As Starratt (1993) admits, seeking a climate of agreed upon notions is still a challenge from a community perspective, as humans express their values in a variety of ways that are not always predictable and easy to harness.

Certainly, there are subjective claims at play in the community approach, just as in the traditional approach. Those who claim to be offering a "compass through the swamp" have their own visions of the society they seek to build: one that challenges many of those traditionalists who would support the status quo. Of equal certainty is that values expressed by both approaches to character education reflect values that may be taken as Western and middle class in their orientation.

In fact, Starratt even dismisses the effect that his project can have in American inner city schools filled with multi-ethnic students facing tough socio-economic conditions. These schools operate in survival mode, Starratt writes, and have little time for platitudes and likewise they have little community support. So again, the critic might ask: Whose values? To whose benefit? Are middle class reformers simply buttressing their own positions within the social order once more?

The plan itself, according to Starratt, "calls for great courage, a modicum of intelligence, lots of humility, humour and compassion, and an unyielding hope in the endurance and heroism of human beings" and the "virtuous act must be continuously sought" (136). And the result, according to Hunter would resemble the following depiction:

moral education has its most enduring effects on young people when they inhabit a social world that coherently incarnates a moral culture defined by a clear and intelligible understanding of public and private good. In a milieu where the school, youth organisations, and the larger community share a moral culture that is integrated and mutually reinforcing; where the social networks of adult authority are strong, unified, and consistent in articulating moral ideals and their attending virtues; and where adults maintain a certain watchfulness over all aspects of a young person's maturation, moral education can be effective. These are environments where intellectual and moral virtues are not only naturally interwoven in a distinct moral ethos but also embedded within the structure of communities"(155)

If communities of stability and integration are rare then the future of such education schemes may not be stellar, or very effective. And, at best, the community-minded approach may be no more than a large, incremental, locally focussed task, especially, in the wake of peer culture, popular culture, and other influences society holds for students outside of their daily school schedules.

The Road Ahead
As an educator I am concerned with providing students the opportunity to care about and to act upon core ethical values. And, for me academics take priority, as my goals of education include graduated students who are culturally literature and ready to assume a reflective position in society. I also want my students to foster their own sets of values that may help them make life decisions, in a world that is vastly different. I also am concerned with processes that are fair, equitable and desired, and that are based upon notions of the cognitive dimensions of teaching and learning as I remain convinced they are the most affective means to true learning. I am concerned with the establishment of caring communities as I see them as the basis of survival for a democratic way of life to which I have grown comfortably accustomed. I am also concerned with the flux of post-modern life, and the apparent changing values that transformation entails. In other words, when it comes to character education I seek some type of hybrid between the traditionalists "quick fix" focusing on the individual, and the community-orientated consensual approach concentrating on building humane relationships. However, as this paper draws to a close, I am still not sure if an amalgam exists, or if one can be found. Furthermore, if a hybrid is to succeed the slope between indoctrination and relativism is a slippery one to traverse.

Van Orden (2000) suggests that the two approaches need not be at odds. "To reach consensus, habit formation and decision-making do not need to be equivalent," she reasons. Rather, she argues that one technique such as the direct approach might be used with younger children, while the moral reasoning of the community-minded might be employed with older students, as presumably they possess the maturity for the task. Yet, such a "consensus" might not address our earlier questions about whose values and at whose expense? Moreover, could traditionally-minded character builders and community-orientated character advocates even come to some agreement?

As frustrating as it may be, theory and practice have not quite been worked out, so both sides continue to gather fuel for their rhetorical fires. More work needs to be done. Thomas (1991) reminds us that there are excellent questions waiting for researchers:

• Can a character education program help students to develop their analytical and evaluative skills and, at the same time, to grow in their ability to show compassion and to empathise and care about other people?
• Can a character program help students to accept legitimate rules and authority and to understand the complexity of the decision-making process as it applies to upholding or sacrificing moral principles in making value-laden decisions?
• Can a character education program enable students to establish their own moral and intellectual perspectives and to remain compatible with their cultural heritages and the values held in their homes and communities?
• Can a character education program resolve differences and inconsistencies between the implicit values of the hidden curriculum and the values that form the basis of the explicit character education program? (6)

Moreover, research is needed to establish how and when values are formed and whether they can be acquired easily at later stages of development. Also, studies need to be done on both short- and long-term effects, since success in shaping character may not be detectable for quite some time. Perhaps, in the future a student will look back upon a character-building experience and reflect that it was a formative period in his or her life. How does one isolate or measure that impact? Surely, it cannot be quantified.

As Williams & Schapps (1999), Berkowitz (1999) and Mathison (1999) remind us there seems to be an overwhelming support for the idea of character education on the part of educators and parents, but little understanding of what it entails. There remains much disagreement on what character is. There are perceptions of limited time and resources in already over-burdened classrooms. Limited research data exists about which character education elements are effective and for what outcomes. There is ambivalence about the appropriateness of character education and the ability or willingness of teachers to teach it. Indecision abounds over the existence of common values and conflicts between accepted values. Moreover, little exists for educators and school administrators in terms of preparation, workshops or professional memberships to provide forums for wrestling with these very issues. However, to silence the discussion at this point means that values education and moral decisions will continue to take place in schools as has always been the case, but without the benefit of addressing the relevant arguments.

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