Ethics: principles, applications, and contemporary issues

Ethics in Education a. Ethics are not a problem when one's ethics have not been challenged. The difficulty with ethics comes when one is faced with an ethical dilemma: that two or more core values are in conflict (1).

I don't think I have any difficulty with "amoral imagination." I know there are ethical points-of-view on any important issue. Bologna et. al. (PAGE) presented a hypothetical situation where a student teacher had ethical problems with the cooperating teacher's disciplinary tactics. In the example, the teacher made students stand at the blackboard with their noses in small circles for not completing work quickly enough. To me, that is clearly an unethical response, a punishment response to an educational problem.

However, I am not sure I would have the skill to negotiate such a situation. The cooperating teacher might see it as a judgment of her if I used the opportunity to reteach instead of punish. However, ethically I could not punish children for working slowly b. Intellectually I know that my actions have an effect, especially when teaching. I know that those actions can have ethical implications. For instance, I know that I must report any suspected cases of child abuse. Doing that is certainly an action that would have an effect.

The difficulty I might encounter could stem from basic lack of experience. As a student teacher or new teacher, I might not always know what the ethical ramifications of certain actions might be. As a new teacher I might not be sure whether a student shows signs of child abuse. Maybe those aren't rope burns on her leg. Perhaps her leg got tangled in a rope swing. In such a situation I would seek advice from others.

c. Ability to analyze the critically ethical dilemmas, including and understanding of competing values and the ability to scrutinize options for resolution.

As Luckowski (PAGE) points out, when two core ethical concepts compete, the danger exists that a teacher will choose a pragmatic rather than an ethical solution. An example of that might be overlooking a child's struggle with learning because the teacher feared that the time it took to make a referral for an educational evaluation might take up time the teacher felt could be spent more productively for the benefit of all the students.

While teaching all the students is important, so is identifying whether a child has some kind of learning impediment is also important, and ethically I would have to find the time to do both tasks well, and not rationalize that the educational referral was not necessary.

d. I do not think I would have any problem accepting the responsibility to make ethical decisions and take ethical actions. In the examples used here, I would never use that blackboard punishment for slow work. I would attempt to find out why the child was working slowly. If the problem represents an educational need I would attempt to meet that need. If it did not reflect an educational need, then the natural consequence for the student's choice would be in the grades, not at a circle on the blackboard.