Ethical Challenges, Annotated Bibliography Example

Abstract

The paper provides an overview of the four articles related to ethical challenges in teaching. The practical implications of the information and practical solutions to ethical issues in teaching are discussed.

Keywords: ethics, teaching, K-2

Ethical Challenges

Ethical dilemmas and controversies have a marked impact on the quality of teaching. Unfortunately, the current state of research regarding ethics in K-2ND teaching environments is scarce. Simultaneously, most ethical issues teachers face in senior grades are similar to those in K-2.

In his article, Heyer (2009) tries to reread the purposes of education. The author seeks to prove that one of the major goals of education is to give students an opportunity to articulate a preferred social future and to exercise informed judgment with others in their movement toward this goal (Heyer, 2009). Heyer (2009) provides an overview of the so-called “best practices” which offer a proactive approach to teaching and promote “truth-processes that might supplement individual and socially inherited commitments”. Actually, the process of teaching knowledge in K-2ND classes is about self-realization and self-expression. Postmodern curricula are mostly student-centered, but the ethical question is in whether self-realization in the classroom has its boundaries and what teachers must do to ensure that informed judgment does not violate the rights and interests of other students. Students must have a clear understanding of the Good and Evil criteria, to guarantee that their expression does not turn the class into a disaster (Heyer, 2009). To reduce the negative implications of this ethical challenge, the teacher must set the reasonable boundaries of self-conduct and, simultaneously, be ready to reevaluate informed judgments through a diversity of perspectives.

Henderson, Antelo and Clair (2009) write that achieving teaching excellence in a multicultural context is extremely difficult, given the diversity of meanings which students of various cultural backgrounds will give to the concept of excellence. The U.S. scholarship tradition promotes the ethical value of cooperative educational practices and student independence, but it is even extremely problematic to decide what ethical values will work in multicultural teaching environments (Henderson, Antelo & Clair, 2009). Teachers must begin with self-examination and proceed to investigating the diversity of principles and values in a multicultural classroom; based on this information, teachers must transform their practices, to meet the needs of all students (Henderson, Antelo & Clair, 2009). This is the model I will follow in practice, to ensure that my teaching practices do not discriminate against any of the students in a multicultural classroom and that they have equal opportunities to excel in their studies.

That cooperation is one of the basic prerequisites for the successful learning is difficult to deny, but the lack of associations between school curricula and student realities presents one of the most serious ethical challenges. Natale and Sora (2010) write that business curricula today swing between technologies and academic theory, leaving little or no room for teaching the changing realities of business life. The issue is equally important in K-2ND classes when teachers, instead of trying to reinterpret academic knowledge in real-life terms, avoid judging and discussing even the basic curriculum concepts. In order to meet this ethical challenge, teachers will have to re-invent their approaches to teaching and to create a complex cycle of interdependencies between various disciplines. Students must have an opportunity to express their views, based on what they learn from other disciplines and their lives. Treating small students as conscious beings who can apply their academic knowledge to their life experiences is one of the basic ethical challenges in teaching, but teachers can meet it if they realize the value of judgment and cooperation in class.

Teachers working in K-2 learning environments must be prepared to meet the ethical challenges of technology. According to McGregor and Wetmore (2009), the use of emerging technologies in the classroom poses serious ethical dilemmas, because it is often unclear how the new technology will work and what results it will produce. To address these challenges, teachers will have to engage with their engineering and science colleagues; to explore the social and ethical implications of such technologies; to have better knowledge of these technologies and to educate students about them; and to analyze the ways in which new technologies can be linked to daily practices and experiences of K-2 students.

References

Henderson, R.L., Antelo, A. & Clair, N. (2010). Ethics and values in the context of teaching excellence in the changing world of education. Journal of College Teaching & Learning, 7(3): 5-11.

Heyer, K. (2009). Education as an affirmative invention: Alan Badiou and the purpose of teaching and curriculum. Educational Theory, 59(4): 441-463.

McGregor, J. & Wetmore, J.M. (2009). Researching and teaching the ethics and social implications of emerging technologies in the laboratory. Nanoethics, 3: 17-30.

Natale, S.M. & Sora, S.A. (2010). Exceeding our grasp: Curricular change and the challenge to the assumptive world. Journal of Business Ethics, 92: 79-85.