When Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura met with a ministry panel recently to discuss the inclusion of moral education for elementary and junior high school students beginning in 2015, he unwittingly stepped into a potential minefield. At least that has been the experience in the United States.
The problem stems from the thin line between morality and religion. Even seemingly universal values such as honesty and respect are often grounded in religious traditions. As a result, teaching morality, as Shimomura wants, invariably involves the risk of violating the separation of church and state.
A California teacher found himself sued for comments that a student felt were hostile to religion when he questioned creationism in an Advanced Placement European history course. A federal appeals court ruled in August 2011 that the teacher was entitled to qualified immunity.