Educators and Ethical Code

Code of Ethics among Educators

Teachers should have a strong ethical code specifically, when it comes to how teachers interact with a child's family. The educator recognizes the family as an integral part of a student's educational process no matter their skills abilities or intellect. While stringent enforcement of personal state and national ethics codes for educators is an expectation in all areas of education, ethical requirements may be more stringent when working with students who are gifted and talented or who have special needs. Ethical behavior towards families is important because ethical behavior creates trust. When a teacher is educating a student who has special needs or who is gifted intellectually families must trust the person teaching them.

Strike and Soltis define ethics as the process of determining right from wrong. They argue that there are two types of ethics consequentialist and non-consequentialist. With consequentialist ethics, people determine what is right or wrong by the consequences of their actions, with non-consequentialist ethics right and wrong are rather arbitrary. Ethics are used to guide teachers and to help them determine how best to address ethical social and administrative decisions with parents students and co-workers. Teachers follow several ethics codes that may or may not conflict with each other. The first code of ethics that guides a teacher is their state standards for professional ethics and conduct (in this case Georgia). The second group of ethical codes that may guide educators are those of national teaching unions or associations such as, the National Education Association and the Association of American Educators. Third, they are guided by ethics and professional standards codes within their educational specialty (e.g. the National Association of Gifted Children). The final level of ethics that guide a teacher are their own individual ethics.

Ethics guide many of teacher's day-to-day interactions with students and their families. For example, ethics may guide a teacher to question an abused student about their home life and encourage them to call social services not because it is school policy but because it is the right thing to do. Ethics may also guide a teacher to encourage students to meet their full potential. Families are often included in these ethical dilemmas or behaviors because students spend the majority of their time with families and guardians. Ryan and Cooper suggest that ethics in teaching is not complicated. It should be as much a part of everyday teaching practice as creating a lesson plan or taking attendance. Finally, Higgens suggests that teacher's classrooms and schools are part of the macro-environment of a child's life along with their family. These systems must interact ethically and effectively in order to effectively educate a child.

ETHICAL CODES

State of Georgia Code of Ethics for Educators

These ethical standards guide teachers working in the state of Georgia. The code does not say anything specifically about ethical codes applying to a student's family however; there are aspects of the code that apply to a teacher's relationship with a student's family. These mainly focus on mandatory reporting of abuse, neglect, criminal behavior, or drug and alcohol possession by a student and to the confidentiality of student records. Teachers are required to report the above stated crimes involving a child to either the police or social welfare services. This is not only part of the state ethics code but a teacher may be jailed if they do not comply. The second part of this code that applies to families are the confidentiality requirements. Teachers are required to keep all knowledge of student records private with the exception of the student's family and their authorized representatives (teacher's doctor's lawyers etc).

American Association of Educators Code of Ethics for Educators

According to the American Association of Educators (AAE), teachers have several obligations to a student's family. First, teachers are obligated to communicate with parents about all aspects of their child's educator. Second, teachers should respect the culture religion race and ethnicity of the child and their family. Finally, teachers should attempt to develop a positive relationship with both the school and the community including families. This means that teachers should foster a respectful environment towards families and respect their privacy, which is the foundation of most ethical codes whether personal and individual or organization based.

National Education Association Code of Ethics

The National Education Association (NEA), divides their ethical code into two parts, commitment to children and commitment to the profession. The codes applying to children state that the teachers should respect student's privacy and confidentiality, which applies equally, to how one treats a student's family in an ethical manner since treating a student ethically often involves a student's family.

National Association of Gifted Children

Ethics is covered under standard nine of the National Association of Gifted Children's "Initial Knowledge and Skills Standards for Gifted and Talented Education". The primary areas that apply to families as well as students are confidentially and multiculturalism, which is standard for educational ethics codes. While these standards do not go into detail on the ethical perspective of the NAGC and do not specifically apply to the families of gifted and talented students in most cases teachers apply this type of standards to families and students.

Personal Ethics Code Regarding Families of Students

The first aspect of my personal code of ethics regarding my student's families is that they have rights according to state and federal law. These rights include, the right to determine certain aspects of their child's educational experience, the right to respect and the right to privacy and confidentiality. Second , families come from all different income levels, cultural backgrounds, races, and religions. Teachers should not denigrate or discriminate against parents who do not share their own personal cultural, racial, religious, or social class background. Teachers should try to understand these diverse backgrounds and work with them. Third, teachers should adhere to school policies regarding student's families no matter what these policies are.. Finally, teachers should work with parents to help a student learn.

Essentially what this personal code of ethics boils down to is respect and recognizing that a child's family play a more important part in their life than a teacher does. Therefore, it is the job of a teacher to ensure that they communicate important information about the student to the family. As part of this, a teacher must recognize that personal information about the child is restricted to the parent, the educators and administrators of the school and the people that the parent's authorize to see the information. This can be especially sensitive in the case of gifted and talented students or students with special needs since they may require specialized education plans or receive services from the school that are not public knowledge.

Respecting parents also means understanding the parents. As a teacher, it is important to understand diversity in race, diversity in culture, diversity in religion, diversity in sexual preference, and diversity in income. Students families come from all different backgrounds and teachers must accept these differences and not treat a child or their family members differently because of them. These differences should be seen as valuable and as a teaching tool for either the specific student or the class in order to foster tolerance in the classroom. Families are also valuable because they are the ones that enforce school policies like homework assignments attendance and standardized testing when a student is at home.

Ideally, it is simply an issue of treating student's families as if you want to be treated yourself. You are an adult and deserve respect tolerance and privacy and so are they. When parents express a desire for something to be done in a specific way (e.g. a child's diet or medical care) than do the best you can to implement changes. Common courtesy communication and respect are central to how a student's family should be treated. While this seems simply on paper in a real life, teaching situation a teacher may be dealing with hostile angry or combative parents who are not interested in what you have to offer. This complicates this relatively simple ethical code because it is often difficult to decide how to respond in these cases.

There really is not a lot of room for ethical gray areas on how a teacher should treat a child's family. Respect, tolerance, communication, and courtesy are relatively black and white concepts. Either you are respectful or you are not. You communicate well or you do not. You are tolerant or you are not. The only variation is when one takes into account socio-cultural differences that change what a person perceives as respect tolerance communication or courtesy. Therefore, it can be concluded that my personal ethics code is focused on respect courtesy and treating families the way that I would like them to treat me.

References

American Association of Educators (AAE). Code of Ethics for Teachers.

Education as a Commodity. itchybrainscentral.com/example-essays/education-policy

Higgens, C. The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional Practice. London UK : Wiley and Sons.

National Assocation of Gifted Children.. CEC - NAGC Initial Knowledge & Skill Standards for Gifted and Talented Education. Washington D.C.: NAGC.

National Education Association. Code of Ethics.

Ryan Kevin and Cooper James. Those who can: Teach. New York: Cengage Learning.

State of Georgia Department of Education. 505-6-02 Code of Ethics for Educators . Atlanta, GA: State of Georgia.

Strike Kevin and Soltis Jonathan.The Ethics of Teaching . New York, NY: Teachers College Press.