Teacher Ethics

I asked a colleague of mine why he thought I had never told him to stop punching a student in the face.  He correctly observed that this would have been unnecessary, since he was not in the habit of punching students in the face.  By similar logic, my wife has never told me to sit down and consume vast quantities of pizza as if I were still seventeen.  I do that just fine on my own.  She does, however, have to tell me that I need to rest or get more exercise because I am not naturally inclined to take care of myself in those ways.

We tell people what they do not likely know and we refrain from speaking what we assume is common knowledge.

What does it say, then, when newly hired teachers must be told not to sleep with their boss, have sex with students, or show up to work hammered or high? 

The pictures throughout this post were taken of a PowerPoint presentation at the ethics training for newly hired teachers.  I will not name the state or district, but they were shared by a good friend and highly respected colleague who teaches there.

Should a teacher really need to be told that "the 'night before' must end early enough for you to sober up before reporting to work?"  Should a teacher really need to be told "no flirting with students?"  Should a teacher really need to be told not to cuss out a student or colleague?

Make no mistake, all these violations of professionalism, law, and common decency have occurred in schools.  Nevertheless, one of two situations must be true in the district that offered this training to newly hired teachers.  Either it was necessary to do so or it was not.

If it was not necessary, then it was exceedingly insulting to professional adults.  Sadly, it would not have been the first time in the history of education that well-educated, professional adults were treated as if they were children.

Yet, even more sadly, this probably was necessary.  It was probably necessary to tell adults charged with helping develop the intellectual gifts of children not to have sex with them.  It was probably necessary to tell adults who should be modeling the best of what the human race has achieved, which should be the core of their curriculum, not to come to work inebriated.  It was probably necessary to tell adults who are the custodians of the words that have been spoken to bring light into darkness and to conjure forth the ideas and devices that have saved countless lives and allowed the human race to explore the eternity set within its heart not to use two-cent vulgarities best suited for the bathroom wall.

Yet such things ought not to be.  For the vast majority of those who would claim the name "teacher," the highest intellectual and moral standards should prevail.  There will always be the exceptions, of course, but these can and should be dealt with individually.  If we have arrived at a point where the best we have coming into the profession truly need such training, then we must ask ourselves some hard questions.

First, have we so destroyed the profession of teaching through crippling legislation, tyrannical or ridiculous local leadership, and media vitriol that few decent people will enter it?  Schools of education and licensing departments suggest so (here, here, and here).

Yet even if we were no longer able to attract the most accomplished, creative, and intellectual among us into the realm of teaching our children, would we be truly unable to draw people with a basic moral sense?  This would be a far greater problem.  The schoolhouse is not the monastery, to be sure, and there should be no requirement for sainthood to accompany the teaching license.  Yet we must all ask ourselves what sort of culture we are developing if people who enter the field of education need a PowerPoint presentation to tell them the information in these slides.

Tools of The Trade

We hear a lot about whether or not to arm teachers, and this evening one school board in Michigan will be the next to take up the debate.  I am all for it.  Arm us to the teeth, I say.  Now, before you start calling for my head, hear me out.  I want to see teachers armed, but not with the weapons you have in mind and for a different fight.

Around the year 445 B.C., Artaxerxes ruled as the Great King of Persia.  His cupbearer, a Jewish man named Nehemiah, asked the Great King to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall that had encircled the city.  When permission had been granted, Nehemiah did just that, but quickly encountered opposition from Israel's enemies.  Nehemiah realized that the builders were going to have to do more than was in their job description.  In the Book of Nehemiah, Chapter 4, verses 17-18, we read, 

Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other.  And each of the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built.

From Treasures of the Bible, Henry Davenport Northrop, D.D., International Publishing Company, 1894.

American education has become the battlefield on which a war is being fought.  On one side are educators, families, and children who care about our heritage, our future, and the humane goals of true education.  On the other are dehumanizing forces that use weapons of control and misguided testing and evaluative tools to rout the advancement of the true, the good, and the beautiful and to install a hegemony of pragmatism that seeks nothing more than a productive labor force. 

Like those ancient builders, teachers must continue their work of construction.  We are building futures and shaping lives.  This work must go on even during the war.  We cannot tell a generation of students to put their lives on hold while adults, many of whom hold the title thanks solely to biological age, figure out what to do.  We must, instead, as in the days of Nehemiah, arm our teachers both to build and to fight.

The construction tools and the practice in how to use them are found in our university schools of education, and it is here that our pre-service teachers must also receive their training for war.  For example, we must help those about to seek teaching jobs to ask the right kinds of questions in their interviews.  How much freedom and autonomy do you provide your teachers?  What system do you have in place to mentor new teachers?  What is your structure for advancement and leadership?  How do you honor your teachers?  What practices do you have in place to make sure that the best stay and grow in the profession?

When the first round of trite and canned answers drop from the sky, our next generation of teachers must be prepared to push back.  They must be trained to see through deception and obfuscation.  They must be equipped to spot the desperate grasp for answers to questions that may not have been asked before.

And when they find themselves in their first classroom, emailing their parents about their joyful expectation of working with children and teens to discover the wonders of the world, they must feel the sword at their side.  With tablet and marker in one hand, they will continue the work of construction, building into the lives of our children.  With the other, they will continue to fight for more humane working conditions, models of student and teacher evaluation that make sense based on the complex and human nature of education, and school environments where freedom rules instead of fear.

More is needed and expected from the teachers of today.  They must be builders and warriors both.  In keeping with the military theme, but borrowing from another ancient story, I ask them.  "Who will stand on my right hand and keep the bridge with me?"