Running head: MORAL FRAMEWORK 1 Moral and Ethical Framework: Teaching with Values and Inspiration Cara Botz Seattle Pacific University
Moral Framework 2 Moral and Ethical Framework: Teaching with Values and Inspiration There are many quotes that go with teaching, one quote that has stuck out in my mind and has impacted and supports my style of teaching is by William Arthur Ward, it says, The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. I believe it is through inspiration and a firm, confident grip on one s personal values that can help a teacher to be successful in their field. Using the tool of inspiration in a classroom setting will allow students to explore and make good decisions which can turn into good actions. As Kyle Fedler argues, On the one hand, our character is reflected in our actions. Not only do our actions reflect our character, but our actions determine our character (Fedler, 2006). The purpose of this essay is to describe my values and how I came to believe them, how they may impact the lives of my students and are implemented into my everyday instruction. It is inevitable, especially in education, that my core values will be intertwined with my lessons, behavior management and interactions that I have with my students 180 days out of the year. My identified values that motivate my personal and professional life would include: responsibility, respect and work ethic. The first being responsibility is a very broad term and can be stretched to fit most situations that one comes across in life. I feel a sense of responsibility to my family, education, job, home, pets, friends, etc. Being my parents first born and therefore the eldest in my immediate family there is a strong sense of responsibility to look out for my younger brother and set a good example in most decisions and actions. Both my parents were the elder siblings in their immediate families so I was brought up to have a keen sense of this value as the elder sibling with my brother and me. I m not making the implication that only older siblings can exemplify this value but rather my family bestowed on me the importance of
Moral Framework 3 modeling responsibility in everyday life, situations and relationships. As an educator I have the expectation that my students will show responsibility in their choices and actions. I attempt to model and share my thinking for what a responsible choice might be given a particular area in the school or when faced with making a particular decision. When dealing with a behavior management challenge I try to use appropriate vocabulary and do a walk-through of the child s decision-making sequence. During this walk-through together we re able to identify when and where they may have missed or shown responsibility in that particular situation, these teachable moments everyday give me opportunities to recognize the value of responsibility in small and grand settings. For as long as I can remember respect has been a value that both my brother and I came to recognize and understand at an early age. My dad was a firefighter and therefore he worked a shift that required him to be at the firehouse for 24 hours at a time and would be away from home. This left my mother in a position that required her to be like a single-parent raising two kids, 24 hours on and 24 hours off. My brother and I weren t perfect angels but we knew that if we didn t show our mother the respect she deserved while my dad was at work, as soon as he got home we would be dealing with him and his discipline actions as opposed to our mothers. While we may have given my mother a tough time, Chris and I were very respectful to our teachers, family members, friends and even strangers. Respect, like responsibility can be a broad term as well and so for this paper I m using respect in correspondence with good manners and showing respect with public approved manners. By having a firm understanding of what respect looks like, I have a very high expectation for my students to show me and other guests in our classroom this value. In the past few years that I ve been teaching I ve noticed a shift in the actions and attitudes of children coming into our school. Currently I work in a Title 1 school
Moral Framework 4 therefore the demographic of the area is primarily low-income, high minority and singlefamilies. Children in my classroom, from my observations, are coming in with attitudes and objectives that seem more fitting to teenagers rather than third graders, students that could be classified as having ODD (Oppositional Defiance Disorder) a disorder that I was unaware of and not familiar with in my teacher credentialing program. I m not making the implication that all students in Title 1 schools show this trend of behavior or disorder, nor am I making the implication that minorities, low-income or students from single-family homes exemplify this behavior either. It s my observation in my environment that I m seeing this attitude and trend, which has caused me to go above and beyond in teaching lessons that identify students/children showing respect. Family is very important to me and I appreciate everything my parents have been able to provide for my brother and I. They ve been wonderful examples, in my opinion, of what hardworking and ambitious people look like and live. My dad at one point in time was a career engineer for the fire department and on his off time would drive trucks for a logging company to make extra income to help put me through college. My mother for most of our lives was a parttime x-ray technician for Kaiser so that she could help with our families income and also be there for her children. She had taken on her role and responsibility as our moral nurturer (McClellan, 1999). She then increased her hours so that she was full-time when her kids were in middle and high school to start saving money for college. Therefore having a strong work ethic is another value that I feel is very important and one that I live by every day. While I was in college I worked 2 part-time jobs, had a full class schedule and found time to play an intercollegiate sport. I felt that if my parents worked hard, I should work equally as hard to be successful and that state of mind has stuck with me ever since. Even now, before I started this
Moral Framework 5 new venture of my masters program, I was teaching full-time during the week and then bartending on the weekends and sometime during the week to be able to support myself. Having a good work ethic can go beyond working a job or at school, having a good work ethic in any task will ensure that it s being done at one s full capacity to finish it. I share with my students all that I have going on in my life to set an example of what strong work ethic looks like and expect that if I m doing my job to my fullest capacity, that they re doing theirs. If someone were to critique or challenge my values system they might challenge me with such questions as: Do you live virtuously? How do you teach moral lessons and character education? How do you hold all students accountable? I don t maintain that I live virtuously all the time, each and every day. I can defend that the values I have discussed in length above are ones that I hold closest to my heart and try to live by example each day. I go to great lengths to model for my students these values and clarify their importance in society to them when those teachable moments arise. I know that I m not a perfect person and that I make mistakes, if anyone knows that my students do, they know how comfortable I am with making mistakes. They also know that I have high expectations for students to be responsible, show respect and do their personal best on all tasks. Having these values and carrying them out in everyday situations will help make my students, in my opinion, be better people and better citizens. How I teach students moral lessons and implement them into my instruction I ll address later in this paper. I do hold all my students accountable for their decisions and actions. I do this through validation and through the one-on-one relationships that I have with every child. I m equitable in the way that I hold my students accountable, however my relationships with each child is different, dependent on the child. I take it upon myself to get to know each one of my students in order to best serve their needs both morally and academically. Having that relationship with them is what
Moral Framework 6 allows me to inspire them to take risks and chances, to explore and to accept discipline when they make inappropriate choices. Being an educator places one in the very public eye as well as one s values. I do believe that my third grade team members as well as some co-workers and staff have an understanding of my values. They see this through my implementation in instruction, the way I handle disciplinary problems as well as the way that I talk to my students. I m not a very private person and so I don t keep my values a secret, I m very open with my administrator and my team members. I believe that being open will allow us to make stronger connections to one another and therefore will benefit our students. I m not a religious individual and therefore am not as well versed or familiar with religious ethics or values; however I do believe that my core values could parallel those that are considered religious. The lifestyle that I lead outside of school may not be approved by those from a secular point of view, but I m an open-minded person and appreciate criticism. I think it s important and helps to broaden a person s outlook and quite possibly their character to have another point of view. So while I do believe that my values could parallel those that are religious, if someone were to challenge or argue with me and my beliefs, I would consider their criticism with an open mind. I stated earlier that I would address the challenge and question of how I would teach and implement moral lessons into my instruction and it is here that I ll attempt to do so. In their 2006 book, Moral Matters (Teacher College Press, NY), Barbara Stengel and Alan Tom outline five ways or categories, that moral and academic can be addressed in the classroom. One such way that they address this difficult and necessary dilemma is a category they call the Sequential category. In our reading it was this category that appealed and paralleled my beliefs in how
Moral Framework 7 moral and academic lessons can be taught. It discusses that while both moral and academic are distinguishable they re related in a sequential way, in that way precedes the other (Stengel and Tom, 2006). At the beginning of each school year there are many items on the third grade team s agenda that should be done with students to determine academic levels from the previous year. These items I do participate in along with the rest of my team, however I take time to do what is known as teach-to s with my students the first few weeks of school. Teach-to s are behavior lessons that explicitly and directly teach students desired behaviors to be carried out in the classroom and are complete with learning objectives. Teaching these lessons to my students ensures that I, as well as them, understand that they ve been taught the desired behaviors to be successful in the classroom. By doing this it ll allow me to hold them accountable for when a discipline problem arises or when a guest teacher is present. This idea of MORAL FIRST is the prerequisite for the academic piece, without students moral development, academic success is impossible (Stengel and Tom, 2006). Development of morals and values doesn t just occur at the beginning of the school year, there s a great need to re-address these lessons throughout the year. Also, addressing moral lessons through literacy and stories is another great way to have students identify particular values. This approach of MORAL FIRST helps to create a safe and caring environment for students and therefore allows for learning to be at its peak throughout the entire year. A climate of caring creates a community of mutual respect, relationship, and dignity; that is a moral climate (Stengel and Tom, 2006). While my co-workers are getting a jump start on the curriculum and doing an expedited pacing schedule, I prefer to create a community first and then dive into the curriculum together. By doing this I have a higher percentage of students passing assessments and gaining the knowledge that will help them to be academically successful. There s still a
Moral Framework 8 small percentage of students that are on behavior plans according to their IEP (Individualized Education Plan) and therefore accommodations are made on their behalf, however the expectations remain the same for all students, to be responsible, show respect and do their personal best on all tasks. As educators we re met with many challenges, as with most careers and jobs. My personal core values will be challenged throughout my career in many different forms; therefore it s of the utmost importance that I maintain my belief in these values. It s also imperative that I m susceptible to change even change in my values if necessary, being able to accept these changes is what makes educators and people demonstrate good morals and ethics.
Moral Framework 9 References Felder, K. (2006). Exploring christian ethics: Biblical foundation for morality. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Know Press. McClellan, E. (1999). Moral education in america. New York, NY: Teachers College Press, Teachers College, Columbia University Stengel, B., Tom, A. (2006). Moral matters: Five ways to develop the moral life of schools. New York, NY: Teachers College Press, Teachers College, Columbia University