Let Right be Done: Trying to Put Ethical Standards into Practice

Abstract

The development of ethical standards by professional associations, boards, councils, and colleges of teachers responds in part to a moral imperative that teachers and school leaders be accountable to the wider community and in part to a desire to enhance the overall professionalism of educators’ behaviour. This chapter explores the conceptual and practical complexities inherent in defining ethical standards for the teaching profession with a particular focus on their questionable capacity for implementation. In combining empirical evidence from previously reported research studies with hypothetical first person narrative responses to the evidence, the chapter seeks to illustrate the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of applying ethical standards to actual situations in any professionally and ethically satisfying way. It argues further that moral dilemmas facing teachers are potentially resolvable only by communities of educators internalizing and applying principles of ethics, not formalized codes or standards. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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