Looking at my own practice and identifying an ethical dilemma firstly had me stumped on what to write about. Having to look into my own practice from an ethical prospective is quite hard as we have a lot of ethical responsibilities as a teacher but to bring this down to one to discuss is quite hard.
"A complementary explanation of the development of applied ethics relates to new moral problems facing society as a consequence of new technologies" Collste (2012).
For educators the introduction of technologies and the privacy rights of our students comes into question. Collste (2012) further talked about the formulation of professional codes for rules of behaviour that establishes common moral ground for co-professionals. For teachers we stand by a Code of Ethics for certified teachers which covers areas such as:
- Autonomy to treat people with rights that are to be honoured and defended
- Justice to share power and prevent the abuse of power
- Responsible care to do good and minimise harm to others
- Truth to be honest with others and self.
- (New Zealand Education Council)
A responsibility of care to my learners is through their use of social media within an education context. For this I do speak to them regarding their cyber safety and how to protect themselves online both within the classroom and at home. The sharing of passwords and devices between students is ever alarming and needs to be addressed through our professional responsibility to our learners. Unfortunately I have had to deal with a dilemma in this context when a girl was being bullied through social media by not only a girl in her year but also her older sister. Although we have to ensure the students privacy I did in this case ask the girl to email me screen shots of the conversations that were had so that I could act on the evidence. Whilst I was not interested in the content of the conversations or the 'topic' I did need to see that bullying was occurring. The evidence was clear on the messages but as it turned out the girl had said that her 'boyfriend' had sent the messages whilst she was in the shower. This meant that I needed to speak to her regarding the offensiveness of the messages but also regarding her own digital footprint and that allowing others to use her phone/device would make her responsible for the bullying that occurred.
Professional distance whilst being approachable is one dilemma faced by teachers of today (Connecticut's Teacher Education and Mentoring Program, 2012) this can be difficult when, with social media, an educator wants to be accessible to their students out of school hours. Transparency of messages is vital for the professional and is becoming more important with the increase in technology integration into the education sector. The ethics around technology usage and professional transparency will be an ongoing dilemma for educators and their schools with guidelines needing to be put in place to protect not only the students but the teachers alike.
References:
Collste, G.(2012) Applied and professional ethics. Kemanusiaan,19(1), 17–33.
Connecticut’s Teacher Education and Mentoring Program.(2012) Ethical and Professional Dilemmas for Educator: Facilitator’s Guide. Retrieved from http://www.ctteam.org/df/resources/Module5_Manual.pdf
Education Council (nd). The Education Council Code of Ethics for Certficated Teachers. Retrieved from http://www.educationcouncil.org.nz/content/code-of-ethics-certificated-teachers-0
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