Ethical decision-making is one of the main issues that face teachers worldwide. The presented case study involves a teacher, Ms. Green, who believes in positive support of behaviour and differentiated instruction as she was taught in her university. However, she has been employed in a school where the principal has zero-tolerance for misbehaviour. In a class with emotional and behavioural disorders, Ms. Green encounters a student, Sophie, who just moved into the school and gets upset whenever she cannot grasp the directions to complete a math problem. The teacher decided to employ one-on-one support by giving Sophie an extra 15 minutes to enable Ms. Green to teach her what was covered in class each day (Mathur & Corley, 2014). When Ms. Green gets a week out sick, another teacher takes over her class and is unsure how to deal with Sophie. She forwards the student to the principal, whose final decision is to transfer the student to an alternative school as she suspends Sophie and rejects Ms. Green’s offer to work with Sophie one-on-one. This paper examines this case study and argues that there is indeed a great need to incorporate ethics in the professional development of teachers.
People Involved
Among the people who care about this case, there are fellow professionals in education and participants or attendees of the workshop. Through storytelling, the facts of the case have been communicated to this audience in a conference workshop. Most of the attendees had different opinions regarding the case. Some expressed that Ms. Green should meet the principal’s demands (Mathur & Corley, 2014). From an administrative point of view, this is an opinion that teachers are responsible for complying with the established school policies. However, other participants disagreed with this by shedding light on whether an official policy backed up the principal’s decision or he acted on his accord (Mathur & Corley, 2014). These diverse opinions highlight the complexity of decision-making in the case study.
Conflict Analysis
The two frameworks in conflict are the ethics of care and profession. Ms. Green was torn between her desire and responsibility to care for the student and that of following the established school policies for student misbehaviour. On the one hand, Ms. Green wanted to exercise the ethics of care as teachers in school must use ethical values that enable students to develop a moral compass guided by compassion and fairness (Mathur & Corley, 2014). The teacher believed in enhancing good behaviour through positive support systems before punishment. This ethics framework shows the value of putting the student first and trying to help before deciding on transferring the student. Thus, administering punitive measures to students puts Sophie’s educational goals at risk as this action does not display the values of compassion and fairness.
On the other hand, the principal is guided by the ethics of profession (to ensure a safe physical environment for all students) and the ethics of justice (adhering to a zero-tolerance policy for behavioural issues) (Mathur & Corley, 2014). Although both the principal and the teacher have a reason to believe they are ethical, the main issue is that the principal is not giving the student a chance for improvement. It is possible that he could be acting based on his interests rather than that of the student.
Options and Consequences
As the teacher in this conflict, I would like to be treated with utmost fairness and respect. This means that the teacher should be given a chance to express her opinion and arguments on why she believes Sophie should be given a second chance with her. The teacher should not be downsized in such a way that her opinion does not matter. Rather, the principal should be open to other suggestions to help improve Sophie’s outcome (Mathur & Corley, 2014). Therefore, a professional’s role in solving this dilemma would be to hear both sides of the teacher and principal’s arguments. The role of the professional would be to ensure ethical decision-making can be achieved in this scenario. This can be achieved by involving experts in the field. Among the colleagues, administrators, or mentors who can help are those who have gone through professional development that builds their capacity to make ethical decisions. In addition to this, teachers who have experienced such ethical dilemmas and managed to come out of them could help in this situation.
Course of Action
With all the available information, selecting the best possible option for resolving the conflict will be based on that which focuses on positive behaviour supports. Ethical decision-making does not support the student’s immediate removal from the institution due to their behaviour. Instead, it supports investing in prevention, pre-correction, evaluation, and additional reminders to the student to practice positive behaviour (Mathur & Corley, 2014). After this effort and the student shows no improvement, it is okay to transfer her. Thus, this course of action can be monitored through the student’s improvement.
Although the above course of action is correct, it is possible that negative effects could be associated with it. For instance, some students may still show negative behaviours even after using positive reinforcements to help them. That is why a line must be drawn in this case, and the student be transferred to an alternative institution. Despite this, implementing positive behaviour supports will help give a chance to students and give them room to improve and learn.
References
Mathur, S. R., & Corley, K. M. (2014). Bringing Ethics into the Classroom: Making a Case for Frameworks, Multiple Perspectives and Narrative Sharing. International Education Studies, 7(9), 136-147. Web.