FRJ #4 - Kohlberg

*4. At which of Kohlberg's levels of moral development are the students in your class functioning? Cite specific evidence and explain your reasoning for selecting these levels. What might be done to help the students advance to higher levels?

Kohlberg’s conventional level of moral development is where most of the students I observed are operating in. the conventional level focuses on the external authorities and the standards of society determine right and wrong. The external authorities are represented by the authority of Ms. B or the teachers in the classroom. The social standards are represented by peer pressure in the classrooms.

External authorities are represented by the teachers. In Ms. B’s classroom she makes the rules and enforces the rules. She has done a great job setting up and teaching procedures in her classroom; there is not one student that questions the rules of her class. The students know that she sets the tone of the class and if they want more freedom in the classroom then they need to follow what Ms. B says. Ms. B’s seventh period class is her most talkative class; she says that she has to be more strict with them and they are not allowed the freedoms her other classes are given. For example when they would do their group activities Ms. B would choose their groups for them. Where in her fifth period class they did the same activity and they got to choose their own groups.

Standards of society determine right and wrong is represented by peer pressure. In the high schools the social standards are set by the other students. Many students do things just because the other students believe that it is ok. When I was teaching the class for my teacher work sample for my Curriculum class Ms. B had me teach her seventh period class; as said before this is her most talkative class. I started teaching and a several students kept talking pretty excessively; one of the girls in the class told the boys to be quiet that I was trying to learn to teach. There was not much talking after that and the students seemed engaged. Ms. B told me that she had never seen them be that quiet and I needed to come and teach every week. This is an example of the standards of Ms. B’s classroom society determining that it was right to listen and wrong to talk and be noisy.