Chapter 8 Notes

What Are the Ethical and Legal Issues Facing Teachers?

“What Are the Philosophical Foundations of American Education?” brings us into the realm of what is the right way to act.

Ethics refers to a system or a code of morality embraced by a particular person or group. Law is related to, but different from, ethics. A law is a written role that members of a given community must follow.

Laws and Our Ethics:

Whereas ethics may be invisible obligations that we perceive, laws typically are statements that have been hammered out by the legitimate authority of a particular community, state, or nation and are used in court as standards by which to judge, and often penalize, the actual behavior of individuals.

The characteristics of ethical teaching:

The author delves into the teacher’s ethically complex world. Issues involving ethical judgment, we as teachers need to exhibit six characteristics: appreciation for moral deliberation, empathy, knowledge, reasoning, courage, and interpersonal skills.

1.       Appreciation for Moral Deliberation: “seeing competing interests

2.      Empathy: feeling what others feel

3.      Knowledge: knowing all the facts

4.      Reasoning: thinking systematically

5.      Courage: confronting, not evading, problems

6.      Interpersonal Skills: acting with sensitivity

Ethics and the law are closely related, but they also differ.

• Ethical teaching has six specific characteristics.

• In addition to teaching's everyday ethical dimensions, teachers can and should formulate their own codes of professional ethics.

• Teachers need to understand fully how two basic legal terms, due process and liability, relate to their work.

Laws are concrete, made by people, and usually written down for the public to see; ethics, by contrast, consists of ideas that are less tangible and observable. Most of our laws are simply the codification of what we see as our moral or ethical obligations to one another.

In reality, the teacher has a special type of power. This power arises from the fact that the teacher has an impact on people when they are still at a very malleable stage. The teacher is in command of the classroom insofar as he or she has the responsibility for what goes on.

Scholars often argue about whether humans are born with an imprinted sense of what is morally correct. Few would suggest that we are born with a full-blown, guiding moral philosophy of life. Instead, developing a strong, guiding code of ethics is one of our primary responsibilities as members of society.

Teachers do not struggle alone when they face ethical issues. Besides their own understanding, reasoning, and moral compass, they have the support of a professional group. Professional groups, such as those composed of doctors, architects, and teachers, have special obligations to their students.