Education As a Human Right – Ethical Issues for Teachers
In the distant past formal education was reserved for the privileged. Today it is universally recognized as a basic human right. Shortly after its birth in 1945, the United Nations created The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Originally adopted by 58 countries in 1948, the number grew to 170 countries by 1993. Article 26 of the Declaration spells out the parameters of education as a human right, as follows: (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among … Read More..
An Ethical Dilemma for Teachers – How Much Extra Help Is Too Much
The idea that teachers should be available to students needing extra help with assignments or related problems in understanding course material is not new. However, opportunities to actually get that help under the traditional “teacher-tell” model of education were limited. Some teachers included office hours in the course syllabus, but were sometimes not there. Not all teachers arrived early or stayed a few minutes after class to make themselves available to answer questions or provide additional guidance. Today we know that understanding the unique needs of students promotes better learning. Contemporary teachers offer multiple ways students in need of assistance can contact them. Many trainers now arrive early and stay late when possible. Internet technology supplements office hours and some teachers even go so far as to provide home telephone numbers to students in need. Does this pose a potential problem for teachers? The truth is, as hard as we … Read More..
Befriending Students – The Ethical Dilemma Within
In the strict “teacher-tell” model of traditional educational approaches, teachers who sought to become friends with their students were outside the norm. In some cases, this kind of behavior was actually seen as a breach of ethics. Teachers were the experts and students were the novices and the gap between them was to be maintained to preserve both order in the class and the respect for authority needed for learning to occur. Recent research on how the brain learns has turned that view upside down in many educational environments. Although there is still some disagreement about brain-based research, it does appear to indicate students learn best that which is relevant to their lives. How can teachers structure their content and presentation methods to reflect relevance if they have little, if any, understanding of their individual students and the way contemporary students live their lives? And what better way to learn … Read More..
Ethics in Education – What Role Should Teachers Play
John Dewey, the father of progressive education, promoted the revolutionary notion for his time that formal education should be about more than the acquisition of bodies of content knowledge. He strongly believed education should go beyond the mastery of knowledge and skill to include learning to use classroom content in daily living. Not only that, the practical application should be towards promoting the “greater good.” Buried in his approach was the belief that there are in the world actions that can be deemed to be “good” and some that can be deemed to be “not good.” A sense of what is right and what is wrong, or what is fair and what is unfair is the underpinning of ethical or unethical behavior. Daily living can be thought of as a series of choices made, many involving discriminating between things that might be considered “right” and things that might be considered … Read More..
Individual Ethics – Should Teachers Influence the Ethics of Their Students?
There is no question that throughout history teachers have inspired students in areas that go beyond the subject matter taught. Successful people all over the world often point to the influence of a teacher as contributing to making them who they are. Even when they do not consciously set out to do so, teachers can become role models for individual ethics. One of the many dilemmas teachers face is the question of whether or not their ethical influence should include a conscious effort. To address that question we first need to consider the meaning of ethics and the source of an individual’s ethical principles. What is Ethics? Ethics is one of those slippery concepts that can be difficult to define. A constant among all definitions is the notion of a set of principles used to discriminate between right and wrong. Thus, in the eyes of an observer the actions of … Read More..
