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In session 9, questions were raised about what values, ethics and moral mean. Finding the differences between those three words was proven to be tricky but we came up, as a group, with those definitions. Firstly, values are personal; they vary with our upbringing, our faith or our culture. Secondly, ethics are an agreed value system put into action; they state what is appropriate in society. Moreover, they are there to address behaviour. Thirdly, moral is, in my view, a global vision of standards of right or wrongs. Good educators should have those qualities: They should have personal values, they should be aware of what is appropriate and they should be concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action.
A case study was presented to us: A primary school teacher, during her free time, made some inappropriate pictures for a car advertisement. She was asked to leave the school as a result. Is that fair? Should she had had a sense of ethics and be aware that this behaviour wasn't an agreed value system for a teacher? I would agree with that, it was not ethical. But i don't agree with the decision made by the school. Teachers have humans right like all others humans. Article 3 (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948) states that "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person". Furthermore, the declaration states that "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks" (1948). Therefore, I don't completely understand how this teacher could have been fired even thought I understand that it was morally and ethically wrong.
A further explanation of "duty of care" was given to us. As teachers, we need to avoid foreseeable risks. The following case study was analysed: a field trip is organised next to a lake with 20 students, what should you do, as a teacher, to avoid foreseeable risks? Some ideas were raised as: having enough teachers to supervise the entire group, educating the students beforehand of the possible risks, applying strict rules and more importantly having at least 2 teachers trained for CPR. This anagram was explained for us to remember the steps to ensure the security of our students: PIES. "P" for policy - are there policies in place? 'I' for infrastructure - what have you done in your school to protect your students. "E" for education - what do the students know about the safety. "S" for standards - which sorts of quality control do you have in your school?
An interesting point was made about values and moral. If you work in a school that has a few financial difficulties and is not able to provide the money to buy enough softwares for all your students. There are 20 students and enough money to buy 3 softwares. What do you do? Do you copy the software and go against the law? Or deprive the students of this software for financial reasons? My first instinct was: Even though I know it is against the law, the kids come first, I would copy it. But after reflection, I realised that there were lots of options to get around it: find a free similar software, take turns on the computers, ask for the permission to copy it, etc.
To sum up, this session raised some very important and serious issues about moral, values and ethics in education. It developed my understanding and awareness of what can, or is, accepted in today's Australian society for primary school teachers.
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