Navigating Ethical Dimensions in Education

Ethics defines behaviors in which people follow to maintain a sense of integrity in the workplace and within other avenues of their lives. Ethical behaviors deliver us an understanding into a person’s morals, values, and their principles. Ethics is pertinent to many different fields of study, including education. Educators along with professional organizations utilize codes of ethics to endorse positive behaviors, and to form an organized structure among all employees that will ensure maximum productivity within the workplace. These codes of ethics are usually aligned by frameworks or principles and act as guidelines for stakeholders and prove especially helpful in determining if an ethical violation occurred in a school. Ethical codes are positive facets in the field of education, on a school and personal level.

Ethics Analysis

Professional Ethical Comparison

The National Education Association (NAE) is one of the country’s most popular professional organizations for teachers, administrators, and education advocates (National Education Association, 2015). With this organization’s far-reaching membership across the country, it is easy to recognize the NEA’s influence and advocacy for public schools. The NEA provides a Code of Ethics of the Education Profession to which all members of the organization adhere (National Education Association, 2016). This particular code of ethics is one that many strengths, but also a few obvious weaknesses when compared with other popular codes of educational ethics.

The ethical frameworks present in the NAE’s Code of Ethics of the Education Profession (2016) are that of “Commitment to the Student” and “Commitment to the Profession,” Principles I and II respectively (p. 433-434). The Preamble to the code also focuses on the collective goals of those who adhere to it and to all those who participate in the education profession in general (NEA, 2016).

Principle I, the “Commitment to the Student,” focuses on the educator as a facilitator and guide to learning (NEA, 2016). NEA’s Principle I (2016) states the following:

The educator strives to help each student realize his or her potential as a worthy and effective member of society. The educator therefore works to stimulate the spirit of inquiry, the acquisition of knowledge and understanding, and the thoughtful formulation of worthy goals. (p. 433)

This preface to the eight obligations of the code that the members of the NEA adhere to sets the tone for the ethical duties of an educator in regards to any students at any grade level that they may encounter. Following the preface, NEA’s Principle I (2016) sets forth eight “shall not” tenets that apply specifically to the commitments educators must make to students. The first three commitments pertain to the subset of empirical facts to which all students have rights (NEA, 2016). Commitments four and five pertain to the subsets of normative ethical protection of students within the classroom, namely their physical and psychological safety (NEA, 2016). Commitment six addresses a student’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, as it protects students from discriminatory behavior of any kind (NEA, 2016). Commitment seven forbids educators from using authority over students for personal gain (NEA, 2016). Commitment eight pertains to the moral and ethical responsibility of confidential student information (NEA, 2016). NEA’s Principle I (2016) coincide with the beliefs of Nelson, Palonsky, and McCarthy (2010) when they state, “The paramount responsibility of teachers is to their students. Because students are immature and uninformed, teachers must carefully exercise their influence and temper freedom with responsibility” (p. 415). The NEA’s placement of their commitments to students as their first principle in the code of ethics furthers this regard to placing students first above all else.

Principle II of the NEA’s Code of Ethics of the Education Profession (2016) revolves around “Commitment to the Profession”, and is secondary, though no less important, to the organization’s commitment to students (p. 434). In the preface to the eight professional tenets, the NEA (2016) reiterates the fact that “The education profession is vested by the public with a trust and responsibility requiring the highest ideals of professional service” (p. 434). Anyone entering into the education field should not do so lightly. The preface continues by highlighting the enormous charge of duty and obligation that educators have as the “profession directly influences the nation and its citizens” (NEA, 2016, p. 434). The ramifications of this statement place educators in the same realm as upstanding lawmakers and military officers who tend to appear more center stage, but who are doing work just as crucial and committed as that of teachers. The education profession is a profession of service. As Nelson, et al. (2010) suggests, “The teaching profession has an extensive and illustrious history. It is based on the idea of service to children and society” (p. 415). Principle II of the NEA’s code supports the moral duties and ethics applied to educators. Commitments one and two under Principle II both pertain to the subset of personal honesty in that educators should not misrepresent themselves or their aims when entering the education field (NEA, 2016). Commitments three, four, and five relate to the same subset of honesty, but specifically concerning honesty towards potential colleagues in that educators should protect the profession from those who are unqualified to educate (NEA, 2016). Tenet six concerns colleague confidentiality, as does tenet seven, although it focuses on defamation of character (NEA, 2016). The final commitment pertains to the moral duty of educators to refuse “any gratuity, gift, or favor that might impair or appear to influence professional decisions or actions” (NEA, 2016, p. 434). NEA’s commitments to the profession of education work not only as an ethical guide to work by, but also function as a system of checks and balances for every stakeholder in the education system.

NEA’s code of ethics is firm and concise, providing a strong set of guidelines for educators. The organization’s ethical commitment to students and to the profession cannot be denied. One strength of this particular code is that is it compact and concise. The wording is not convoluted. It is easy to read and easy to follow. The ethical subsets to the overarching frameworks of the code are easily identifiable, and it is not hard to see why so many educators back the NEA based on these principles alone. It is also easy to see the strength of the code in that it does not include irrelevant tenets, and focuses primarily of the basic, most fundamental values of that cover all stakeholders in education, not limited to those who teach. The NEA’s (2015) code is also applicable to those who make major decisions for entire school systems, such as administrators and school board members. Nelson, et al. (2010) corroborates that these administrative and county officials be held to the same ethics as in-classroom educators as suggested by the statement “Each board of education has a responsibility to provide children with information, skills, a set of social values, and a moral code that strengthen society” (p. 419). The NEA’s Code of Ethics of the Education Profession (2016) is the epitome of inclusivity.

However, with any code of this nature, there are areas of weakness where potential ethical dilemmas could arise. One such area of potential dilemma is that while the NEA’s code of ethics is collectively restricted to a mere sixteen commitments, there may be some that believe the code need be expanded to add clarification to its broad ideals, particularly those ideals pertaining to Principle I which concerns students. A definitions appendix might be helpful to refine terms such as “independent action,” “reasonable effort,” “disparagement” or “advantage” that the code seemingly leaves open for interpretation (NEA, 2016, p. 433-434). The NEA’s (2016) code also neglects important factors that impact whole schools by not providing principles that cover actions of offense within a school that do not pertain directly to students or colleagues such as the misappropriation of school funds or the unethical use of school property or technology. These highly contentious topics are difficult to place under the umbrella of either of the NEA’s Principles I or II (2016).

Two other areas that the NEA’s Code of Ethics of the Education Profession (2016) neglects to define in terms of commitments are the areas of professional development and community or parental guidelines. The preface to Principle II states the following:

…the educator shall exert every effort to raise professional standards, to promote a climate that encourages the exercise of professional judgment, to achieve conditions that attract persons worthy of the trust to careers in education, and to assist in preventing the practice of the profession by unqualified persons. (NEA, 2016, p. 434)

While this assertion is full of positive aims for educators, it does not list, nor does the remainder of the code provide, specific moral or ethical duties to the constant growth and development of its stakeholders. The phrase “raise professional standards” hints at this goal, but the NEA does not provide any more detail pertaining to the responsibility of educators to continue their own education within the profession, even in simple terms of in-school professional development or training (NEA, 2016, p. 434). The NEA lists no encouragement to higher education of any kind for its educators, be that self-sought for degree purposes or school-sponsored learning events. This code of ethics also neglects to mention any concrete dutiful responsibility to the parents of students or to the community in which they work. Nelson, et al. (2010) confirms the following:

Schools, then, have a special obligation to be responsive to parents’ concerns for their children. This reasoning lies behind the legal concept that teachers act in loco parentis, or in place of the parent. That concept, with deep social and legal roots, protects teachers in handling student discipline and evaluation. It also requires teachers to remain sensitive to parental interests. (p. 413-414)

The neglect of the NEA to provide any clear tie to the responsibility of educator to parent or educator to community could cause ethical or dutiful dilemmas that could impact the performance of the educator directly, and thus may in fact be further weaknesses in this organization’s code of ethics.

Personal Ethical Analysis and Reflection

My code of ethics is founded on a lot of principals that I have acquired or learned while growing up or from pre-service education programs. One of my greatest fears has been to not serve my students to meet their needs. This was why my first part of my code was to serve my students to my fullest extent and to help them reach their full potential. As for ethical frameworks my main focus was on the duties and virtues ethics. These ethics are already a part of my life and were easy to explain in regard to my personal code of ethics. That being said, this is where the greatest strength in my code of ethics lies. My resolve to do what is right and to protect the right of my students or any child for that matter is something that I take very personal. Students need role models and sometimes they need someone to be their voice when it comes to certain issues. The addition of specific normative and applied ethical frameworks into my code would definitely strength my code of ethics. Even though in some regard they are included, they aren’t specifically noticeable. Next, there is the question of where might ethical dilemmas arise? This could happen anywhere, but specifically when serving students. If a student is not served to the fullest extent, then there are legal ramification that may follow with consequences up to termination of contract and the loss of certification. Lastly, what is one of the frameworks that would only strengthen my code of ethics would be the inclusion of consequences. Giving consequences to oneself and knowing the consequences for not doing what is expected of an educator sometimes must be clearly defined.

There are two main frameworks to my code of ethics. They are duties and virtues. The many duties listed are examples of things I believe all educators should try to do every day. However that is not always possible. Achilles and Guarneri (2009) said that teachers have an ethical duty towards students. With regard to that and to my code of ethics educators must see it as their duty to provide a students will the best possible education that we can give them. We must push to make sure they understand the material and that the feel valued. Also in the first section of my code of ethics I explain that I will stay dedicated to teaching my students while I am at school. There have been so many occasions that I have seen teachers worried about things outside the classroom that can wait until a later time to deal with it. Most parents expect for their child to get a quality education and it is our duty to make sure that happens. In regard to virtue in my code of ethics there is a great quote from the text Critical Issues in Education that come from the authors research, “Throughout history, and in cultures around the world, education rightly conceived has had two great goals: to help students become start and to help them become good” (Nelson, Palonsky, McCarthy, 2010). The significance of this quote in regard to my code of ethics with emphasis on the virtue framework is when we educate students we are teaching the whole child. Nelson, Palonsky, and McCarthy discuss in chapter 11 the implementation of teaching values and morals to students (2010). As an educator I feel duty bound to hold myself to a higher standard. Students look up to us not only as educators but as leaders and sometimes as parental figures. They need to see that we have values and good morals so that they can learn them and possibly make them their own. Values are not something that can be easily taught, many students learn by example, so that is why it is important for us to be that example.

Strengths within my code of ethics is that many of my consideration are founded on using my moral compass and a desire to do what is right. Students should admire and respect their teachers, but there must be a bond of trust there as well. If students do not feel welcome or they think that they may be humiliated in class, your class could become the worse possible place for them to be. Something to consider is that my codes greatest strength lies within my character. The virtue approach of putting my value of humanity above myself, to do the greater good for the world, helps to shape my idea of what is ethical (Bonde & Firenze, 2013). The strength of virtue can be boundless. The reason I say this is that a person who seeks makes the world better, generally does. That is what we do as educators, it can be a daily struggle though and sometimes hard to see. Being duty bound to not only educate my students, but to be their role model and someone they can look up to, are my greatest strengths.

Are there ways to make my code stronger? There is a lack of depth to my code. Given the circumstances I do believe it to have a lot of good ethic foundations, I could always give more examples and include different frameworks. The consequence framework was absent from my code. This framework in particular can be circumstantial though but their still must be rules. Without rules there chaos. In the classroom that would be a nightmare. However sending students to the principal’s office all the time may make the administrators believe you don’t know how to handle your students. So having clearly defined consequences is a good way to avoid this all together. Making consequences for myself is also important. The consequence for not staying after school to grade papers one day will mean that I will be staying even later on another. The consequence of not valuing time is that it will make me use more time. This may seem like common sense, but on some days not staying longer to get things done for the next day can put you in a bind in the morning, even if you get there pretty early. So in order to strengthen my code of ethics I need to incorporate some sort of consequence for my actions and the actions of my students.

Where might ethical dilemmas arise in regard to my code of ethics? The answer is that we are all human. I am going to mess up. I can do my best to always strive to do what is right but every now and then I may end up doing something that upsets someone or not pay attention to a student’s needs and miss it. Dilemmas are not limited to the classroom either. The use of social media can put some people in a tight spot. When a teacher posts something on social media, it is open for the world to see. I made no comments about social media in my code of ethics because I do not have any social media accounts. However, as time continues on and the world and society changes, there is a growing need to make concessions to get one. Another ethical dilemma that may arise is documentation. I know in the first section of my code I stay that I will reach all learners. That means serving students with Individualized education Program (IEP) or a 504 plan. If at any time a student or their parent does not feel that they are being served and I do not have documentation that shows otherwise, I could be in a whole lot of trouble. The reason this is an ethical issues is that it is my duty to be sure that these students are getting the assistance and attention they deserve. If a student who has a low reading level and I expect them to read at or above their grade level would not be beneficial to this student and could violate part of their accommodations as part of their IEP. As stated at the beginning though, we are all human, and mistakes will happen. It is how we handle those mistakes, do you own it and do your best to fix the problem or do you just continue to let get worse until it becomes a huge issue and could put your job on the line.

What are some other frameworks that could be added to my code of ethics? I focused mainly on the ethical frameworks of duty and virtue, which have relation to normative ethics and applied ethics. Most educators ought to know what they should be doing and what is expected of them. They should know how to act but I could add this to part of my code. I do believe morals are an important part of what makes a teacher so successful but so do have firm foundations and good values. Applied ethics does play apart in my code but I could lay better foundations for this framework. What this means is that I include more things that I should be doing on a day to day basis on the grounds of morals, not just hold myself to a higher standard. This may mean that I express being fair but firm, not making judgments, and/or behaving in a manner that would not bring dishonor to me or my place of work. The thing is that many of these things listed are things I do every day. Mentioning them shouldn’t be necessary because educators should always be focused on being morally correct.

Summarizing the importance of my personal code of ethics is to explain what I see as my own character and my own morals. They are grounded in the ethical frameworks of duty and virtue and this is where the strength of my code of ethic is. However they can benefit from the addition of normative and applied ethics as well to help reinforce the practices on implementing them into everyday life and only make me a better educator and a better person. Ethical dilemmas can happen at any time. They can range from what to do when a student needs a ride home from a sports practice to making sure you have all of the documentation available to support that you have been serving students to meet their needs if an issue should arise. The most important take away from my code of ethics is that I must continue to grow as an educator. This is the only way that I will ever be able to completely serve my students.

References

1. Bonde, S. & Firenze, P. (2013). A Framework for Making Ethical Decisions. Brown University,
2. Program of Science and Technologies Studies.
3. Retrived from
4. https://www.brown.edu/academics/science-and-technology-studies/framework-making-ethical decisions
5. Georgia Department of Education. 2015. Teacher and leader effectiveness. Retrieved from
6. http://www.gadoe.org/School-Improvement/Teacher-and-Leader-Effectiveness/Pages/default.aspx
7. National Education Association. 2015. About NAE. Retrieved from
8. http://www.nea.org/home/2580.htm
9. National Education Association. 2016. Code of ethics of the education profession. Retrieved
10. from http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/Code_of_Ethics_of_the_Education_Profession_2016_NEA_Handbook.pdf
11. Nelson, J.L., Palonsky, S., and McCarthy, M.R. (2010). Critical Issues in Education: Dialogues
12. and Dialectics. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Appendix

Jordan Leigh’s code of Ethics

As an educator it has always been my number one goal to reach all learners. This means preparing and developing curriculum that can benefit all students. I teach my students to increase their knowledge and not to a test. I always hold myself to a higher standard. This means that when I am at work I am solely focused on teaching my students, not texting my wife or talking to my peers about what I am doing during the weekend during my planning instead of actually doing what I am supposed to be doing.

Duties as an educator

1.One of my other goals as an educator is to teach the whole child and serve them in any way they may need.

a.This means that if I believe that a child is neglected or abused I make sure they get the help they need. If I think a child is hungry or without certain proper hygiene products, I help them in a way that would not be offensive.

2.It is also serving as a role model students can actually look up to.

b.This means that when there are rules, I follow them to a “T”. Role models must not bend or give in. If they do they lose the respect of those who look up to them.

3.In the classroom I do not have favorites and make that very clear.

c.Students who try get the same amount of attention that any other student does.

4.It is my duty to my students to present them information that is exempt of my own opinions and bias so that students can make their own informed decision about what they believe is their own point of view on certain topics.

d.On occasion it is okay to explain why someone may take a certain side on topics but to not show favoritism towards one idea or another.

5.I also make it my duty to make sure that my students know what I expect from them so that they can know what to expect from me.

6.As an educator it is important to take pride in what I do.

7.It is my duty to show up to work not only on time, but to be there early enough so that I can be properly prepared for teaching that day’s lesson.

8.I present myself as a professional every day that I am in the classroom,

9.Professionalism outside the classroom is an absolute must for educators as well.

10.I will make every concession to be a team player at school as well.

e.These means taking on extra duties and being dependable when it comes to school activities.

Code of ethics

This is based on all of my other information up to this point.

1. I will make sure I serve my students.
2. I will respect my students and my peers.
3. I will honor the community I serve by only teaching students to reach their full potential.
4. I will continue learn as much as I can about the education field so that I can continue to become a better instructor.
5. I will follow all guidelines given by the school to provide students with an environment free from any threat or harm. (Not limited to verbal threats, bullying, fighting, disrespect, etc., etc.)
6. I will be sure to report any thing that I believe to break these policies or puts students in dangers of any kind.