MRAVNÁ VÝCHOVA V ŠKOLÁCH NA SLOVENSKU A V ZAHRANI ČÍ

etc. Prevailing frontal (traditional) education does not develop pupils´ abilities to differentiate
(distinguish socially) various attitudes and characteristics in their schoolmates´ expression more
precisely. A coherent supervision of pupils in the development of differentiating abilities and skills in
various social situations is a long term debt of our schools that cannot be changed easily.
Moral education – problem of the contemporary Czech school
First of all, it is necessary to emphasize that on the basis of the Framework Education Programme
(FEP) all primary schools in the Czech Republic have created their own School Education
Programmes (SEPs). Secondary schools have been creating the same gradually. FEPs for primary
schools (2005) and for secondary schools (2007) are documents that provide space for schools to
profile themselves relatively autonomously. They can merge subjects, create new subjects, transform
curriculum contents into projects, teach in blocks, use their own methods of assessment etc. In this
curricular document, to more extent than in any previous documents, emphasis is put on the so-called
key competencies. Attention is also paid to new topics within the so-called educational areas (e. g.
Man and World, Man and Society, Man and Health etc.). All this is achieved through the contents and
orientation of the so-called cross-curricular subjects. In terms of primary schools there are six crosscurricular
subjects (Moral, Character and Social Education, Civic Education for Democracy,
Education towards Thinking in European and Global Contexts, Multicultural Education,
Environmental Education and Media Education). In terms of FEP for grammar schools there are five
cross-curricular subjects with the same names (except for the Civic Education for Democracy).
Including of the cross-curricular subjects into SEPs enables schools to deal with issues that used to be
on the margin of the teachers´ attention. It is problematic, however, to which extent teachers are
professionally and didactically capable of dealing with those topics (e.g. none of them could study
Media Education at university). Most of the time teachers can only rely on individual studies, although
there are not always good quality information sources available.
Ethical and also value problems can be found in the educational areas as well as in the contents of the
cross-section subjects. Within Moral, Character and Social Education one of the topics is Moral
development, which is divided into two subtopics: Problem-solving and decision-making skills and
Values, attitudes, practical ethics (s.76). In general, ethical topics within FEPs are scattered and the
document does not offer any concept of systematic formation of pupils´ character (morality) from preschools
to secondary schools. The topics appear episodically and they are usually mentioned as minor
in terms of other issues. It is so-called “mingling with all subjects” – i.e. maybe everywhere, maybe
nowhere. So, it is impossible to speak about any systematic, conceptual and coherent moral influence
that would be supported in this basic curricular document.
After all, ethics is not a study area at any faculty of education in the Czech Republic and thus it is
logical that it is not stated as a subject in FEPs (Except for traditional subjects teachers can study e.g.
Health Education at universities).
Mostly due to the increase in pupils´ educational and discipline problems (aggression, bullying,
alcohol, drugs but also “new” sociopathic phenomena, such as deliberate self-harm, netolism and
cyber-bullying, of which also teachers become victims) there are more calls for precautions and
methods that would solve the above stated phenomena.
There are two kinds of suggested and discussed precautions: restrictive and preventive. Unfortunately,
teachers tend to prefer the restrictive precautions in form of stricter punishments, more power to
teachers (status of public servants), installation of security cameras and frames, security patrols in
schools etc. The reason why the restrictive attitude is preferred is the fact that majority of teachers
lacks authentic and tried ways of influencing moral character of their pupils (Vacek, Švarcová, 2008).
At the moment, discussion is held on the website of the Pedagogical Research Institute authorized by
the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports whether ethics should be included into the FEP for
primary schools as a Complementary educational field (subject). Second foreign language and Drama
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