Ethical Blogs

What is Ethical Decision-Making in Educational Leadership? In order to answer the question, I must start with my views on ethical decision-making in general before applying it to Educational Leadership. I consider ethics to be the moral philosophy or moral principle of human nature. Morality must be exhibited in everyday life. Making the correct choices will lead to prosperity and success; however making incorrect choices can lead down a road of destruction. As a child, I often heard my mother say “Morals and values will never change”. I dismissed her redundant statement and thought she just wanted my sister and me to do as we were told. As I grew older, I better understood why she taught us about moral decency. It is our human nature to take a stance for what is right and just. Your character is built on your moral views and actions. Good moral character can open doors of great possibility in education, the work force and your personal life. Morality and ethics are often used interchangeably but are distinctly different. As previously stated, morality describes your personal character. Ethics is the application of social codes of civility and the law. The issue is that the social codes may be different for different cultures. Thus, ethical decisions should be made contingent on the environmental factors. The decision I make about an issue at home may be completely different from one I make in my classroom. Does that make me a hypocrite? No, it means I have a choice on how my household is run in my cultural setting. I do not have that privilege at work. I must make decisions based on the policy and procedures of the student and staff handbook. My decisions must be for the better good of all students regardless of race, gender, and/or socioeconomic background. Ethical decision-making helps us make difficult choices when faced with a situation in which there is no clear right or wrong answer. The effect of your decision to others will also affect their decisions on you. I was also taught to do unto others that you would want them to do until you. In education, I had to understand there is not a textbook or cookbook approach to a dilemma. An understanding of ideas, values, or concepts has to guide my decision-making and demonstrate what I believe to be the best for students, staff, parents, and all stakeholders. When I first started teaching, I had a list of rules posted in my classroom. There was no deviation from those rules. If you broke one of the rules, you received the level of consequence associated with the offense or infraction. I received complaints from student’s parents. I was teaching a third grade class and they felt the rules were too restrictive for third grade students. My belief has always been “train up a child in the way he should go and we he is old he will not depart from it”. It is biblical. The Bible is correct; however, I was not in my implementation.

I was teaching third grade students in Southwest Houston not Sunday School at my church. My views were changed when I learned of a situation from one of my friends at church. She was very upset because her son who was a 5th grader at the time had received a disciplinary referral for chewing gum. Her son had anxiety attacks and gum calmed him. She taught him to chew it properly. She felt the teacher was being petty and the principal was encouraging the teacher’s pettiness by assigning her son to a week of detention. I was stunned that she had not received a phone call from the teacher expressing that her son was not following a classroom or school rule. The referral clearly stated that this was an ongoing infraction. My advice was to contact the teacher and principal and discuss her son’s condition and that the gum chewing was advised by his physician. I thought back to the complaints of my parents. I made parent calls as a third offense to an infraction. My students did not receive a discipline referral to the principal prior to having lunch detention and after school detention with me first; that justified my process. The next morning as we recited the classroom rules I realized I was expecting 3rd grade students to behave like adolescents or young adults which they clearly were not. I realized there was going to be a change in my classroom and the rules. A definite change was needed. The next day the rules had changed. I also sent a letter to all parents stating the changes in the classroom rules. I placed a personal note of thanks to the parents who voiced their opposition to the rules. My classroom was a different environment. The grades of some kids dramatically increased and I saw talents that were stifled. My ethics training began that year. I had an ethical responsibility to learn the interest and cultures of my students. I had to learn that information in order to plan successful lessons for my students. I could not teach them the way I was taught. I was a different generation with different training. Today, my ethical training exists in a different manner. I am still concerned with how discipline affects the classroom and learning but I am just as concerned of how the consequences of discipline are affecting success. Students are receiving tickets as a consequence. This ticket is permanently on the student’s record and can affect future plans. High school diplomas, job security, and college admission can all be affected by the ticket(s) received as students. It should be the ethical decision of the administration to be concerned with the future of students as well as safe and civil schools. When creating discipline guidelines for students, we must think of the good of the school and all stakeholders. Students need consequences for their actions but we must make ethical decisions that will deter the behavior. We must also ensure the consequence does not cause distrust of the administration or cause a change in the student’s success.