[MUSIC] Welcome back to Course 8 on developing relationships. And we're in week two, which is looking at developing positive teacher-student relationships. What I'd like to do today, in lecture four, is to open a discussion on ethical behavior with students. What we need to remember is that ethical behavior and moral behavior are two different things, but they are related. Morals are concerned with what we believe is right or wrong or conforming to certain standards of behavior that are based on these particular principles. So we have a series of internal rules, and we behave in a particular way based on those rules. And we talk about ethics it's really a set of moral principles or a set of values that hold us together. So ethical behavior is really behaving at a level that is appropriate. That is behaving in a way that is proper and right for students. So we have moral obligations to our students. The first moral obligation that a teacher has of course is to provide instruction at the highest level possible. To try and involve themselves in teaching and learning in a way that is going to be positive, is going to be productive and is going to be done in a way that's acceptable. We also recognize that teachers need to have an obligation to help students learn. People who are professionals, want to behave in a particular way that is appropriate to that profession. So as teachers, we need to make sure that we do everything possible that will help students learn. So if we think about professionalism as a teacher, and you've discussed this before on a couple of occasions. What does it mean to behave professionally? Well, for a start it means that you need to be there. Teachers who are professional are always at work on time, they come every day. They conduct their classes with a particular way of doing things. They are always prepared to conduct their class. They are well informed about the subject matter. And they consistently think about, how do I go about improving what I do? How can I make my teaching better than it was yesterday? So, if we think about this, how can we work with other people to demonstrate our professionalism? Well, it's important at times that we work with other teachers. That we work with our school leaders, and that we work with parents. We might need to do this in a professional way, and what does that mean? It means that at all times, we have the interests of the student at heart. Everything that we do as a professional is designed to improve what happens in terms of the student's learning. At times this might mean that we have to confront parents. We might have to say to them, you really love doing your job. How can I help you to make sure that your child is well prepared for school? Has enough sleep, has enough food, is washed, is clean, and is interested in what we're doing. How can I help you to make sure child is prepared? It involves developing an understanding that we all have policies that we need to follow. And that we have to understand that some of these policies are really important even though we might not agree with them, necessarily. There are always a list of policies that we don't necessarily agree with. But we still might have to behave in a way as if we do. The professional way of behaving within a policy framework is to do what is required, to make sure that you do at least the minimum that you have to. You may go beyond that. You may go a long way beyond that if you agree with the policy. But if you disagree with a policy made by government or by ministry, you have no choice but to comply anyway. That is what being a professional is all about. However what we need to remember is that the educator has a commitment to the student. We need to stimulate a spirit of inquiry. We need to provide people with the resources that they need in order to follow that inquiry. We need provide them with knowledge. We need to provide them with appropriate instructions and so on that will enable them to do that. So these are some of the issues that are appropriate in terms of ethical behavior. If you look at ethics as a study, it's a study of looking at what is good and bad. It's also the study of what is our duty, or what is our obligation within a particular framework. Ethical behavior in the community will flow out of it into ethical behavior in the classroom. We expect people to behave in a particular way in the community. We expect teachers to behave in a particular way in the community. There's an expectation for instance, that teachers do not have inappropriate relations with their students. There's an expectation that teachers will not be drunk. Either when they're working on in public, if preferable. So, there's a level of behavior that we expect that is ethical, moral and contains a series of values. So, teachers have a set of principles or a code of conduct that governs their behavior. And that's what being a professional is all about. So we've talked to you before about codes of conduct, we've talked to you before about ethical behavior. We need to recognize that what we have here is a guiding philosophy. And what does that guiding philosophy need to encompass? If we're really concerned about students and if we're really concerned about what's happening to our students,. There's some things that we need to look at. We need to respond to issues associated with dignity. We need to recognize that our students are vulnerable. We need to make sure that we always behave with, with an air of confidentiality. We must be just in the way in which we do things, and we must look at the safety of students which includes harm and benefits and making a judgment about how much harm might come from certain activities. So let's look at that, in a little bit more detail. If we had a respect for human dignity. It means that we behave towards students in a particular way. We need to behave respectfully. We need to be mindful about how other people might see our behavior. We need to recognize that other people have rights. And that we should not behave in a way that overcomes their rights. If we recognize students as being vulnerable, then we also recognize that teachers are in a privileged position. Families are actually allowing us to interact with their children. But they expect us behave in a particular way. We shouldn't behave in any way that exploits the child. We should always look towards the sanctity in the child, to the safety of the child, and to the development of the child in a positive way. We need to understand that most of what we do with students needs to remain confidential. We can talk about it with other teachers but only to the extent that other teachers will need to know. But we can share things with families and families will share things with us. So we need to respect the privacy that they're giving us. We need to respect justice, and that recognizes the right of people to be treated fairly. It recognizes and we've talked about this before, issues of equality and equity. We need to make sure that we don't have any conflicts of interest that we don't do things that we shouldn't do because we have inside knowledge, or because we've had prior understanding. We must always respect the right thing to do. Perhaps one of the most critical things in the modern world is the safety of students. We now have many parts of the world that are not safe for young people. And they're not safe in a variety of ways. Some parts of the world have wars, other parts of the world have drug problems. Other parts of the world have various types of violence occurring, both at home and in the community. What we need to make sure of is that at school, every child feels safe. That at school, we make sure that we do everything that will protect the children physically, psychologically, and emotionally. We need to prevent them from having harm. Now that means we also have an obligation to report anything that's happened to children. So if we had a suspicion that children have been hurt at home and they could be physically abused or psychologically abused or sexually abused. Then we have an obligation to report that to the appropriate authorities. We also have had instances, and these are reported from time to time, where teachers are abusing students. We also need to make sure that we are not one of those teachers. And if we know a teacher that is abusing a student, that we report that to the appropriate authorities. This is an obligation on our behalf. Part of our ethical principles lead to encompass this understanding of safety for students. The following issues that I want to talk about in terms of looking at ethical behavior is the need to balance the benefit of what we do with the potential harm that might occur. We have to make reasoned decisions about whether what we are doing could potentially harm students. And this can occur in a variety of ways. So for instance, we could have in a chemistry laboratory can we just let students play with any of the chemicals, or do we need to be vigilant about them because if some chemicals are mixed together they might explode. We have to then make a decision about what we can allow students to do. Recognizing that there has be a limit on what they're allowed to do, because after that there is a fairly substantial possibility that they could harm themselves. The same sort of thing could occur if you go on an excursion and one might suggest that going on an excursion to a museum or something similar to that is not going to be of any problem at all. But then you might have an excursion that involves things like rock climbing, or skydiving, or water skiing or something else. And here we have to make a decision about what is the benefit to the student of doing this particular activity and what is the potential that students could get themselves into difficulties. We have to balance these up, and to make responsible decisions about the source of things that we allow students to do. So if you call behavior on the part of teachers, involves a range of activities all which are underpinned by a set of principles that we want to accept. We believe that there are certain ways in which teachers should behave. Most people believe this, therefore, this is the way which we should behave. And if we do that, we're in a position of protecting our students but at the same time promoting their learning. In the next week, we're going to start looking at the relationships teachers have with their colleagues, and with administrators. And we're we're doing is saying, how can we have effective relationships, that will help us improve the effectiveness of the school? What are the relationships that we can establish that will help us improve what the school does? So we will look at these things next week. And we will see you then. Thank you. [MUSIC]
