Morality is a system of beliefs about what is right and good compared to what is wrong

or bad.

Moral development refers to changes in moral beliefs as a person grows older and
gains maturity. Moral beliefs are related to, but not identical with, moral behavior: it is
possible to know the right thing to do, but not actually do it. It is also not the same as
knowledge of social conventions, which are arbitrary customs needed for the smooth
operation of society. Social conventions may have a moral element, but they have a
primarily practical purpose. Conventionally, for example, motor vehicles all keep to the
same side of the street (to the right in the United States, to the left in Great Britain). The
convention allows for smooth, accident-free flow of traffic. But following the convention
also has a moral element, because an individual who chooses to drive on the wrong
side of the street can cause injuries or even death. In this sense, choosing the wrong
side of the street is wrong morally, though the choice is also unconventional.

When it comes to schooling and teaching, moral choices are not restricted to occasional
dramatic incidents, but are woven into almost every aspect of classroom life. Imagine
this simple example. Suppose that you are teaching, reading to a small group of
second-graders, and the students are taking turns reading a story out loud. Should you
give every student the same amount of time to read, even though some might benefit
from having additional time? Or should you give more time to the students who need
extra help, even if doing so bores classmates and deprives others of equal shares of
“floor time”? Which option is more fair, and which is more considerate? Simple
dilemmas like this happen every day at all grade levels simply because students are
diverse, and because class time and a teacher’s energy are finite.

Embedded in this rather ordinary example are moral themes about fairness or justice,
on the one hand, and about consideration or care on the other. It is important to keep
both themes in mind when thinking about how students develop beliefs about right or
wrong. A morality of justice is about human rights—or more specifically, about respect
for fairness, impartiality, equality, and individuals’ independence. A morality of care, on
the other hand, is about human responsibilities—more specifically, about caring for
others, showing consideration for individuals’ needs, and interdependence among
individuals. Students and teachers need both forms of morality. In the next sections
therefore we explain a major example of each type of developmental theory, beginning
with the morality of justice.

As children move into the school years, their lives expand to include a larger number
and range of peers and (eventually) of the community as a whole. The change leads
to conventional morality, which are beliefs based on what this larger array of people
agrees on—hence Kohlberg’s use of the term “conventional.” At first, in Stage 3, the
child’s reference group are immediate peers, so Stage 3 is sometimes called the ethics
of peer opinion. If peers believe, for example, that it is morally good to behave politely
with as many people as possible, then the child is likely to agree with the group and to
regard politeness as not merely an arbitrary social convention, but a moral “good.” This
approach to moral belief is a bit more stable than the approach in Stage 2, because the
child is taking into account the reactions not just of one other person, but of many. But it
can still lead astray if the group settles on beliefs that adults consider morally wrong,
like “Shop lifting for candy bars is fun and desirable.”

Eventually, as the child becomes a youth and the social world expands even more, he
or she acquires even larger numbers of peers and friends. He or she is therefore more
likely to encounter disagreements about ethical issues and beliefs. Resolving the
complexities lead to Stage 4, the ethics of law and order, in which the young person
increasingly frames moral beliefs in terms of what the majority of society believes. Now,
an action is morally good if it is legal or at least customarily approved by most people,
including people whom the youth does not know personally. This attitude leads to an
even more stable set of principles than in the previous stage, though it is still not
immune from ethical mistakes. A community or society may agree, for example, that
people of a certain race should be treated with deliberate disrespect, or that a factory
owner is entitled to dump waste water into a commonly shared lake or river. To develop
ethical principles that reliably avoid mistakes like these require further stages of moral
development.

Application of Morality in the family

Family is a fundamental social group in society typically consisting of one or two parents
and their children. Typically, you must love your family members and respect one
another all the times you can apply morality by understanding one another and learn to
know what is good and bad towards them.

Application of Morality in the School, Community and others.

These is somehow synonymous on how you treat your family members, we must know
that any person needs respect, and, if you respect them like you do in your family
members it would be not so difficult to apply morality just like what you do inside your
home.

Even if a teacher is teaching character education simply within her own classroom,
there are many strategies available. The goal in this case is to establish the classroom
as a place where everyone feels included, and where everyone treats everyone else
with civility and respect. Conflicts and disagreements may still occur, but in a caring
community they can be resolved without undue anger or hostility. Here are a few ways
to work toward this sort of classroom

Francis John Casco