Activity 10: Ethical dilemma

Ethical dilemma

Activity outline -

Identifying your personal ethics allows you to understand what drives and motivates you to respond to situations in certain ways. Being able to reflect on your personal views will enable you to more easily set them aside while you make the ethical decisions required in your practice.

Examples of ethical Dilemmas - 

I watched the 2 teacher ethical dilemma videos stated on the Mindlab portal and I have written my responses to the ethical problems raised in the videos below.

Example one - Inappropriate sharing with staff and students:

My response - Firstly the teacher who really has the ethical dilemma seems to the be the male teacher who has found the material posted in appropriate. Does he report this to the principal or approach the teacher involved. Secondly the influence of an older respected adult has a huge impact on the lives of young impressionable to students. If the teacher chooses to drink and smoke than it shouldn't be shared in the same domains or network sharing as with her students as stated in the Guide lines for social media use by the Teachers council as - 

• "When using a social media platform, consider setting up separate groups for specific teaching purposes. Keep your private and professional use of social media separate."  (Teachers Council 2015) 

If I was the male teacher, I would first discuss the matter with the teacher, as suggested in the guidelines to discuss sensitive matters directly, failing this I would approach some member of the senior leadership team and failing this I would make a formal complaint to board of trustees or the teachers council. It is completely in appropriate to teach our students that smoking (drugs or cigarettes) is appropriate behaviour and where possible than privacy blocking needs to be in place so that not all students can view photos that the staff member is tagged in. I personally do not add any current students to my facebook because of this reason, but I do know other teachers that do which I believe is playing with fire as it only takes one post of an inappropriate image that can ruin a career.

Example two - Professional Boundaries 

My response to the second example video: the teacher has exercised his rights to address a truancy issue but failing to address the social issue through a social worker or similar service he is now is a ethical dilemma to provide transport for the student. This places him is a very vulnerable situation. As a male teacher myself, I was told on the first day of work to never be alone with a student due to the number of child abuse cases against male teachers. I have always found this morally wrong as I do not believe that I would harm a student, however I advise other male staff the same as in the case with the transporting the child. I would also be inclined to refer this family to the social worker in the school for help with transport as their are services available for this.

My Personally identified ethical dilemma in the practice of social media  and digital/online access. 

Social media "Shole" Video Incident-
Last year, member of the staff posted a video of a "shole" prank on another staff member during a school trip on their facebook page (this was sincere a kind hearted joke). However at the time, we as staff were trying to stop our students from specifically doing the "shole" prank on other students. For privacy reasons, I will not be posting the original video on this blog, but have included a publicly known example of "Shole" for this reflection activity. 

The "Shole" prank was made popular recently on social media and tv shows as some major sports stars would film themselves conducting the prank on others. 

Sadly the students at our school started to copy this type of behaviour too excessively and took to "shole" students in a bullying manner. The senior leadership at the time hoped that by letting staff and students know that this was unacceptable behaviour we would see a reduction in the number of incidents. Sadly a video turned up on facebook of a staff member being pranked in such a manner and although the staff member involved didn't mind it was seen by a number of students because they were both friends with students online. As stated in the first example, all teachers and staff need to consider -

• "When using a social media platform, consider setting up separate groups for specific teaching purposes. Keep your private and professional use of social media separate."  (Teachers Council 2015) 

The staff member involved was asked to remove the video which they compiled with and sincerely apologized. They were not aware of the impact of video on our students, so some training was given, regarding what is appropriate content to post online as described in the social media guidelines set out by the teachers council.