What is My Moral Compass?

My Moral Compass is a unique interactive web site where we bring historical events and consider them through the lens of the moral choices people make.

Everyone has a value system that we live by we consider our moral compass. As we grow and mature our value system guides us in the way that we behave and make decisions. At My Moral Compass, we consider our value system or moral compass in some of the most compelling events in our history – The Women’s Suffrage Movement, Segregation and Jim Crow, the Vietnam War, and many more of our most important events. There’s also some great articles from sports and entertainment, such as the Beatles, Napster, Steve Jobs, and the music industry, Jackie Robinson, and many more.

My Moral Compass has its content presented in a unique way, with video and graphic resources and a bibliography. If you prefer to read from a printed page, check out the print feature, which converts the article to a print-friendly format or a PDF file.

More than a Website

My Moral Compass is more than a website or a blog. There are a number of educational features that make My Moral Compass an excellent tool for teachers interested in setting up engaging activities for their students.

Teachers Create Your Own Activities

Each event/topic includes a 1000-2000 word article, a number of videos and graphics, and reference sources. You as a teacher may customize each activity by adding your own instructions and activities. The activities come in the form of downloadable documents which the student can print out or complete their assignment and send it electronically.

See a demo of the classroom activites here.
See my notes about the content here.

Authors Wanted

A growing number of topics at My Moral Compass are being written by outside authors including students. Are you a writer who has a good idea for a My Moral Compass topic? I’d like to hear from you. If you’re a teacher, there’s opportunities for your students to write articles for My Moral Compass which can be combined with the curriculum in your class. Take a look at the OJ Simpson article or the School of the Americas, which were written by high school students.

See the content guidelines here.

Student Internship Program in Framingham, Mass.

For the past two years I’ve run an internship program at Framingham High School where students spend an hour per week working with me after school on the website. This is a unique program for students as they get to learn all about and work on a professional website.

See a description of the internship program here.

With Your Help …

By this time in reading about an online initiative like My Moral Compass you’d be asked to contribute. Usually there’s some sort of subscription fee, premium membership, or just a plea for donations. The pitch goes something like “if you like what you see and want to help sustain this website …” Because it does in fact cost money and time to maintain a good website.

Not this one. This website costs almost nothing to maintain. It costs me about $8 per month to host the site (that’s a lot less than my cable or cellphone bill!). Since I am the developer and writer of most of the content it costs nothing to add new content. I’ve added 7 new topics in the 6 months and there have been no out of pocket costs.

So if you like this website, I DO NOT ask you for a donation. Use it! Enjoy the content. There is some excellent new content, and we are up to 52 topics now and growing. There really is something for everyone. Just go through the table of contents. And if you’re an educator, take a look through the classroom activities and demo section here to see what My Moral Compass can do for you and your students.

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