More Ethics Remembered, Considered, Reconsidered

It is a mystery and miracle of
teaching that the same teacher
can change the life of a student
while boring another. This was
painfully clear to me when I read
negative comments about Algernon
D. Black, the best teacher I
ever had, and Dr. Matthew Ies
Spetter, another teacher who had
an enormously positive impact
on me, in “Ethics Remembered,
Considered, Reconsidered” in
the Fall 2007 ECF Reporter.
I regret that a number of comments
in the letters came off
as public teaching evaluations
rather than general assessments
of the value of the ethics program.
For example, one writer
complained, “It was hard to pay
attention while Ies Spetter went
on and on about values, morals,
understanding, humanism, etc.,”
and another found Dr. Black and
Dr. Spetter to be “equally uninspiring.”
In response, I feel compelled
to offer a brief glimpse of a
contrasting experience:
In First Form, the ethics program
came to our class once a week
with a new issue to consider. This
is what happened one day, and it
was typical: We were 13, and my
friend and I would have preferred
to continue drawing Messerschmidts,
Zeros, and MiGs rather
than think of ethics. “Did you
know,” Dr. Black asked without
even greeting us, and before the
door closed behind him, “that in
India cows are sacred?” “That’s
dumb!” my friend whispered.
“And,” Dr. Black continued,
“even the cows’ dung is considered
to be holy.” “Now that’s beyond
stupid!” I whispered back.
I suppose that, for some, that day
amounted, at most, to no more
than vocabulary building. (That
was the day we learned what dung
meant.) But I recall that by the
end of the class, it didn’t feel right
to disrespect the Indians. It didn’t
feel right at all. How did Algernon
D. Black effect that change
in the space of 40 minutes? For
me, it was through the sincerity
and passion of his decency.
Dr. Spetter was a Holocaust survivor.
Here was a person who
survived, arguably, the most
despicable plan in history, and
yet he chose to teach ethics at
the Ethical Culture School whose
primary principle is that the human
race is improvable. If he still
believed that, how could I doubt
it? Attention had to be paid. I
teach Holocaust studies today,
and if I taught it from any other
perspective, it would be an exercise
in cynicism.
The ethics program at Fieldston,
I believe, is what distinguishes
it from other good prep schools
and from the best public schools.
I suspect that even those alumni
who found ethics to be a “questionable
discipline” or “purposeless”
have benefited in less obvious
ways. It taught us critical
thinking as a tool for doing the
right thing. That might have
been a more important lesson
than anything we learned in the
graded courses.
Michael Bobkoff ’61
Chappaqua, New York
E d u c at i o n I s
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ECF Reporter 3