A framework for professional ethics courses in teacher education

Warnick, Bryan R., & Silverman, Sarah K. (2011). A framework for professional ethics courses in teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education 63(2), 273-285.

What’s the best way to help preservice teachers develop professional ethics? A well-designed ethics course as part of a teacher education program’s requirements could be the answer, but it is clear from this article that such ethics courses can actually be detrimental to the development of professional ethics. The authors outline the various approaches taken in professional ethics courses. One approach involves teaching an organization’s code of ethics (the National Education Association’s code of ethics is cited), which is good as far as it goes, but does not go far enough; teachers need more than head knowledge about codes. A second approach involves learning about the foundational philosophical theories of ethics. Knowing the philosophical bases behind ethical positions can be good, but in my experience, it often simultaneously goes deeper than what preservice teachers need (by giving details not needed in everyday practice) and not deep enough (providing only shallow and survey-type knowledge about what seems to be a menu of theories they can just pick and choose from based on preference). When reading preservice teachers’ “philosophy statements” in their portfolios, I frequently cringe at the writers’ shallow choices of philosophies they say they identify with, when it is clear that they really do not understand those philosophies or know how they would be manifested in the classroom. They just choose the ideas that sound good to them and fit with their current beliefs and prejudices. Even the practical-sounding case study approach can go astray. If the only cases discussed in class are the hardest, most perplexing ones (and we teacher educators like to pick that kind because of the rich discussions we think they engender), preservice teachers may develop what the authors call “moral despair” (p. 275) because in difficult cases there are no perfect choices, and there is the danger of the development of a cynical kind of moral relativism where all decisions seem either equally good or equally bad. For that reason, the authors recommend looking at a variety of cases, with everyday examples being used rather than focusing only on severe, perplexing, dilemmas. The authors recommend a blend of the common approaches, but they also outline a framework for case analysis and decision making with nine helpful steps: 1) compile information about the case, 2) consider the various participants, 3) identify and define the ethical problem, 4) identify some options, 5) Do a theoretical analysis of your options, 6) consider your role as a teacher, 7) educate yourself as time permits, 8) make the decision, and 9) decide how to evaluate and follow-up on your decision. Each step is described, and research cited. Then, the most helpful piece of the entire article takes readers through the steps to analyze a real case, one in which a beginning teacher violated school policy and removed student files from school premises. Though her motives had student learning in mind, the worst happened and the files were stolen from her vehicle; the teacher ultimately lost her job. The implication is that if this teacher had followed the nine-step model to make decisions, she might not have made the same decision and might have saved her career. I appreciated this example, and as a teacher educator, found myself wishing for even more classroom examples and more information about how preservice teachers actually responded to this approach.