Ethical contexts

Mind Lab Week 29. Activity 5: Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice.

https://www.ted.com/talks/damon_horowitz?language=en

Ethics is hard, Horowitz said. It requires thinking. Well, no surprise there. Kant said "Use reason" to find what is wrong and right. And if we don't know in the teaching profession, we are surrounded by guides. Of course the Code of Practice reminds us that this really is guidance, not a set of rules. PPTA provides its own support for our work-a-day world - for example,its Teachers Appraisal Guidelines.  Recently I had a request to be appraised by two different people. But I submitted that one was enough. And PPTA guidelines support that.

So all over our profession there are codes and rules and ethical documents. My school has a handbook for parents who want to be on the school Board or understand it. The school has a charter which also outlines its responsibilities. And secondary school teachers have a strong union that is vigilant in overseeing conditions and legal obligations of employees are met.

You'd think with all this documentation that all our schools would run smoothly. But legal challenges and upsets in the system appear not infrequently enough in our media. Why is it all so hard?

Well, we are individuals. And each brings their own set of values to the workplace. It is up to us personally to find the pathway that does not jar against our own values, while fulfilling the rules and needs our workplace brings. In The Teaching Code  Alan Newland talks about the need to 'merge' our personal values with professional code. But that's inappropriate I think. In places my values may clash with my professions. I don't mix them together but go about the difficult task of - yes, thinking - and probably gaining collegial wisdom and advice around whatever the question is. 

My personal values are enlightened by the principle of The Common Good which has been the touchstone of Catholic decision making for centuries. And it may be a touchstone for dilemmas ahead. 

Because underneath the demands of everyday life we can feel things moving beneath our feet. There are ethical questions coming that we have never had to consider before. And they may be more powerful and demanding than anything we have yet faced.

First the ubiquitous algorithms trawled from facebook and the like. Will they destroy our privacy? Our actions be predicted? Our character described to future employers in detail? How can we make the decisions of privacy versus right to know? How can we summon and empower sets of principles that might have our own basest instincts mitigating against them - curiosity, gossip, and the like. 

And where are ethics when our own government installs a Teachers Council on which not a single teacher sits as voice for the profession? In The Significance of ethics and ethics education in Daily Life,  Michael Burroughs reiterates the age-old question - what are my principles? what are my values? While Aristotle's conclusion was to use the best judgement we can in the here and now circumstances, I predict that scenarios of the future will be so out of the range of our experience that we may have little in the way of wisdom to draw on, nor knowledge of long term consequences. Commit your preschooler to robot care? Or your elderly parent? Legislate against facebook? Hold out for personal privacy?

What about the ethical, social dilemmas that face us right now: Are the whistle-blowers heroes? Or criminals? If we the general populace have so greatly benefited from the exposure of material governments kept hidden, how do we move against those same governments when they imprison our liberators?

Damon Horowitz began his ted talk, “We have a lot of data, and we have a lot of power”. Such power brings novel dangers and moral quandaries. Our digital existence may begin to explode with issues that demand informed ethical judgments about privacy, national security, personal abuse and economic challenges for example. Are we ready for it? How will we go about it? One thing seems sure to me – the solutions will have to be collaborative ones. And some of the most highly paid professionals, as we seek to find our way through the moral, social and ethical new ground ahead of us, may no longer be the techies and moneymakers, but the philosophers. In order steer a path true to our highest selves, the philosophers, the pray-ers and the poets may be our new-order guides in the digital universe.

References

Burroughs, M. D. (2016) The Significance of Ethics and Ethics Education in Daily Life. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8juebyo_Z4

 

Collste, G. (2012). Applied and Professional Ethics KEMANUSIAAN Vol. 19, No.1,17–33(2012).

Horowitz, D. (2011). We need a “moral operating system”. Retrieved from (2013) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aVGf4G72IA

Newland, A. Teaching - what are its values, ethics and codes? Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFfktwrjJGE

 

Stoll, L. (1998). Department of Education, University of Bath Reprinted from School Improvement Network’s Bulletin, No. 9, Autumn 1998 Institute of Education, University of London

 

The Education Council Code of Ethics for Certificated Teachers: Retrieved from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/ethical-decisions

Current Issues in my Professional Context

                     

Organisational Culture 

Some great articles on the reading list - wish I'd had some of these years ago. Really stoked to get time to read Hargreaves Professionalism and Professional Learning in full and Stoll (1998) too. Hargreaves with his clear images gives expression to lots of hunches and hmmmm moments I have experienced in my community of practice.

For example, I’ve often had the sneaking suspicion that politicians fulminating against teachers are drawing on their own rather sentimental or sometimes negative experiences at school – while education culture has radically changed in the last 30 years. As McCulloch’s work showed, the politicians ‘tend to  draw on their own biographical […] memories of schooling as children’ (As cited in Hargeaves, (1996)) As a PPTA member that's important to know.

As McCulloch (1997) has shown in Britain, pre-professional images are also highly influential among many Ministers or Secretaries of State for Education, who tend to draw on their own biographical (and sometimes sentimental) memories of schooling as children, instead of referring to broader histories of education as a public project, as they go about the business of formulating Professionalism and Professional Learning educational policy.

I’ve often thought that we teachers can get stuck in a kind of churn-it-out mode that’s not helpful to seeing new opportunities. So I frequently ask myself if things can be done better. My own school culture illustrates this itself with its careful inquiry approach.

I think the climate of our school, if you walked into it, as Elizabeth Warner (2015) says, is serious, busy (at work), warm and stable. With two consecutive principals who have had balanced, open mindsets, the culture is now one of hard-working professionals who respect one another, informed by (sometimes unremitting) updates to our PD which is followed through in consistent, considerate ways. Tasks in new or repeated strategies are discussed and supported by fairly gentle reminders and plenty of offers of support and go-to people. The school is effective, improving and moving (Stoll 1998). I participate in my school’s practice fully. 

my school is 

effective, improving and moving 

Sue Sullivan :-) 2016

In addition, there is an atmosphere of promoting teachers to positions of responsibility and really supporting them quietly as they grow in confidence in their new role. I have seen that over the years in my school and I really respect it.  This is the empowerment aspect Mark Wilson speaks of in ‘Building a Culture of Success’ (Wilson, M. 2013).

M. Wilson 2013

Equally important is the vision and our community is great at that – though the powerpoint sessions seem full of data at times, yet we all know the achievement results for students, how the school is tracking and more widely with whom we are collaborating in the local community, The Papanui Learning Cluster, as in the PHS Charter on the school webpage. So we are well-informed, we have opportunity to discuss and give our viewpoints, our goals are plain and encouragement and support is evident. And we have some sub-group cultures – sport efforts are widely acknowledged, arrival of babies to staff or family deaths are shared, and we have a weekly session of real creative hilarity on a Friday where different departments get to share the roles at the raffle prize distribution.

Current Issues

Is everything perfect? Well I doubt if it is anywhere and I have to say, no, it’s not perfect for me. The main community I work in is one of three classes that each spend their whole day with their teacher. Our classes do not suffer the “fragmented individualism” described by Hargreaves (1982) for most secondary students. Our students are adults. I have been there 13 years. Sometimes it is an unhappy place for me. It has caused me to endeavour to grow immensely – on a personal level. My professional profile is already packed with enthusiasm and endeavour and some recognized success as I have striven to find better ways for my students to learn.

But my efforts to find a place of shared goals and unity have fallen short of that ideal. I did not recognise myself as a possible leader until my mindlab course. Or I might have proceeded more slowly when I sought to enthuse my two colleagues in a concept or approach or a device.  I might have considered what they want and where they are at and where they want to be. Instead of assuming they envisaged serving our students in the same way as I did.

Perhaps there is there a climate of avoiding challenges, a stage Fink (1999) says is “most problematic from the cultural change perspective”. Indeed it has been challenging for me.

I’m still researching, creating new learning approaches, drawing students out into the edge of their abilities, enjoying my wider practice environment and caring for my students as best I can, as per Hargreaves and Goodson (1996), ‘being passionate about teaching, and caring for students’ learning and lives’. Perhaps I need to understand better ‘what others value’ (Dunkelblau in ‘What is School Climate and Culture’). That must include my immediate workmates. Or it has no sense.

References

Fink, D. (1999). Good school/real school: The life cycle of an innovative school. New York: Teachers College Press.

Hargreaves, D.H. (1982). The challenge for the comprehensive school. London: Routledge. Hargreaves, A. (1994).

Hargreaves and Goodson (1996),

Hargreaves, A. and Goodson, I. (1996) Teachers’ professional lives: aspirations and actualities. In I. Goodson and A. Hargreaves (eds) Teachers’ Professional Lives (London, Falmer).

Papanui High School Charter (2016) Retrieved from http://www.papanui.school.nz/school-information/school-charter

Stoll, L. (1998). Department of Education, University of Bath Reprinted from School Improvement Network’s Bulletin, No. 9, Autumn 1998 Institute of Education, University of London

Wilson, M. (2013). Building a culture of success. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_8Bjz-OCD8

Warner, E. (2015) in What is school culture and climate? Academy for SELinSchools Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-_NvhlcusQ

Community of Practice

• What is my practice?
• What is my professional context?
• Who are my community of practice ?

One of the principal communities of practice that are part of my professional life is Papanui High School, a 1500-strong secondary in north-west Christchurch. I am a teacher of adult Asian students learning English in the Adult ESOL department. The mission statement of the school – To provide the best possible education for all our students in a safe, balanced, caring environment – applies also to our three class department for our 60 Korean, Chinese and other Asian adults acquiring language, cultural and society knowledge and skills to participate as citizens of Christchurch.

In opere felicitas: Be happy in your work 

(or - in work find your happiness!)

Our school is also part of a cluster, the Papanui Learning Community Cluster. This includes three primary, one intermediate, one secondary and two integrated state schools, plus 9 early childhood providers.  Of my own 20 adult students aged 25 to 70 years, several have children or even grandchildren at these schools and this makes a meaningful circle of empathy in the local community.

PHS has a very strong community – within its own staff and their subgroups, within the community at large and within the various cultural dimensions our 15% Maori, 11% Asian and 68% European students provide. If the Wenger et al’s (2002) definition of success for an organisation is “their ability to design themselves as social learning systems and also to participate in broader learning systems” then Papanui done a good job of this for me.

As an ESOL teacher I am an active member of CANTESOL – Canterbury Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages – and will giving my third talk to them in July. The focus of these teachers is on ways of teaching and getting the best for their students. The focus of another community I participate in – Secondary schools cluster for ESOL teachers - is using and adapting NCEA units. A complete different community is my relationship with Canterbury University Language Symposium, where I and a broader range of academic practitioners give papers at two symposia a year. 

An even deeper theoretical community is the New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour (NZILBB) at the university of Canterbury which is drawing academics in the language fields from all over the world to its active and intensive research activities in linguistics. In this community I am more of a sightseer as I chose talks that fringe onto my own adult second language acquisition research.

And the community with whom I share my passion for brain networks and adult oral language acquisition is an email list of some 200 professors and lecturers spread across the world. Again this CoP is a domain where detailed research (and jokes and sorrows) are shared and commented on and out of which have come new journals, new understandings and much encouragement. It is a community, it has a practice and shared domain of interest – yet most of us have never met. And it has no mission statement, no charter, no particular goals.

If in Etienne Wenger’s imagery the higher visited hilltops area are our more passionate interactions, this email list, our local and national TESOLANZ and my iatefl groups are my high points of community. And to bring more sharing to my own department’s interactions I have decided to reflect with the RISE inquiry tool.

When I begin to reflect on all these communities I think what about x? and what about y? In my mindlab community I have discovered insights and angles I would have otherwise missed. And now I want to say: My old psychology professor, now retired, and now a friend, is he not a ‘community of practice’ with me? Because he is the one physical person in Christchurch to whom I frequently go and chew over my latest ideas about implicit cerebral procedures and adult learning. Out of our conversations I re-evaluate my progress and even my lessons. So can a two-person chat be a community of practice? I think so.

References

Finlay, L. (2009) Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/files/opencetl/file/ecms/web-content/Finlay-%282008%29-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf

Etienne Wenger talks about 'walking the landscape of practice' recommended viewing. https://app.themindlab.com/media/9244/view

 

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Wray, E. The RISE model for self evaluation. Retrieved from http://www.risemodel.com