The Profession of Education: Responsibilities, Ethics and Pedagogic Experimentation 

Shannon Kincaid, Ph.D.

Philip Pecorino, Ph.D.

The art of teaching is to teach, to teach well and to teach even better.

Chapter: VI.      The Basics for Ethics

Professionals need be concerned about ethical issues related to their profession.  Educators are no different from other professionals in this regard.   What are such the ethical issues?

Ethical issues in the professions are those that involve value choices for the professionals and for society. Michael D. Bayles, Professional Ethics , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Inc., 1981. p. ix.

 Learning about ethics as it relates to a profession has its value.  The study of professional ethics can:

  • Sensitize professionals to the ethical dimensions of professional practice
  • Help professionals to think more clearly about ethical problems
  • Develop some general principles to use in difficult or unusual cases
  • Better understand the role and importance of professions in contemporary society--Michael D. Bayles, Professional Ethics , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Inc., 1981. p.  3

Talking about ethics is not the same as doing ethics. 

Doing ethics involves careful and critical thinking involving basic principles of the moral good in a manner that leads to or defends a position taken on some moral problem or dilemma.  Ethical thinking and resolution of dilemmas involves normative claims.   As a professional educator ethical discourse must be conducted in a manner to bring about resolutions of moral dilemmas in such a manner that it would provide guidance for others in similar situations.  In this manner the profession moves forward and establishes criteria and expectations by which its members can be evaluated as to their performance.   It does not serve the profession of education to accept as being sufficient for an ethical resolution simply to discourse concerning moral decisions without some grounding in basic values and principles that are shared by the members of the profession and that help to define the group.   Different people enter the discourse over the same issue and may arrive at different conclusions as to the morally correct decision and course of action to take.  Differing discourses can produce not only different but inconsistent and contradictory conclusions about what is the most morally proper behavior.  How is the profession to maintain that inconsistent and contradictory conclusions about what is the most morally proper behavior can provide the guidelines and paradigms for members of the profession?   Accepting ungrounded discourse is to issue the directive that “anything goes” in resolving moral quandaries as long as one agonizes or at least deliberates over the matter.  To expect that moral discourse be grounded in common principles and values of the profession is not to indicate that there is not a consideration of the particular details of each situation that might figure in a significant way in the critical analysis and reasoning as to the morally correct course of action.  Such considerations will lead to a variation in conclusions reached but any and all conclusions reached would be consonant with the basic values and thus not inconsistent with or contradictory to other conclusions using the same values.  They can vary from the specifics but not from the basics and the common values.

How are the norms governing the behavior of professions to be founded or grounded?  Are they independent of or derivative of the norms of the society which is being served by the profession? 

If the norms are independent of the norms of the more general society then the need some grounding beyond themselves and they are enfeebled in as much as they would be applicable only with those activities circumscribed by the profession

 If they were independent then they would apply only to those within the profession.  ..It is difficult to understand how professional norms independent of ordinary norms could be justified.  -- Michael D. Bayles, Professional Ethics , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Inc., 1981. p. 5. 

Such professional norms would not provide justification for some conduct of professionals as they relate to those outside of the professions who are members of society. 

The norms and thus the basic ethical principles that should guide professional practice and serve as the basis for resolution of moral dilemmas encountered by professionals in the practice of their profession should be identical with, founded upon, or derived from the norms of the society within which the profession exists and which it serves. 

The average citizen needs good reasons to accept the ethical norms that regulate professional practices.  These norms must be justifiable to a reasonable person living in the society in which the norms operate.  A reasonable person is one who is not mentally ill, who has sufficient intelligence to understand the norms and their implications for most concrete situations, and who obtains facts, listens to arguments, and supports his or her views by reasons.  It is assumed here that such people are self-interested with limited benevolence: that is, they do not care for all others as much as for themselves. Norms for professional roles are to be justified by their promoting and preserving the values of liberal society. -- Michael D. Bayles, Professional Ethics , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Inc., 1981. p. 5. 

The chief values relevant to professional ethics are: governance by law, freedom, protection from injury, equality of opportunity, privacy and welfare. Norms for professional roles are to be justified by their promoting and preserving the values of liberal society. -- Michael D. Bayles, Professional Ethics , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Inc., 1981. p 5. 

The role of professions in liberal society must ultimately be tested against these values. Norms for professional roles are to be justified by their promoting and preserving the values of liberal society. -- Michael D. Bayles, Professional Ethics , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Inc., 1981. p 7 

Norms for professional roles are to be justified by their promoting and preserving the values of liberal society. -- Michael D. Bayles, Professional Ethics , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Inc., 1981. p. 19. 

Not all would agree with the position maintained by Bayles.  One such alternative was presented by Alan Goldman.

Are the norms governing professional conduct to be different from or elevated above those of usual moral importance given in the general society or in other institutions?   

The most fundamental question for professional ethics is whether those in the professional roles require special norms and principles to guide their well-intentioned conduct.  This is the most interesting issue from the point of view of moral theory, since its answer affects the structure of any complete moral system. .--- Goldman, Alan. The Moral Foundations of Professional Ethics. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980. p. 1.

For Goldman the answer to the question is in the affirmative for those professions that are strongly differentiated.

A professional role is strongly differentiated if it requires unique principles, or if it requires its norms to be weighted more heavily than they would be against other principles in other contexts. .--- Goldman, Alan. The Moral Foundations of Professional Ethics. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980. p. 2.

Goldman’s claims are examined here because he has included the profession of education as one of those very few in which there are the strongly differentiated roles. 

It is of interest, I believe, that Goldman finds strong differentiation only among parents, teachers and judges.).--- Kenneth Kipnis, "Unethical Professionalism: Alan Goldman's Foundations of Professional Ethics", PERSPECTIVES on the Professions, Vol. 3, No. 1/2, March/June 1983

In this view that Goldman advances professionals have duties that require them to elevate certain values or goals that are central to the profession… to the status of overriding considerations in situations in which they might not appear overriding from the viewpoint of normal moral perceptions.  .--- Goldman, Alan. The Moral Foundations of Professional Ethics. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980, p. 3.

Goldman claims that there are professions in which professionals will put the interests of clients, those to whom they are obliged to serve above other interests and above the interests of others. At times this elevation will be in violation of the rights of others and expressive of the interests of others including that of society..--- Goldman, Alan. The Moral Foundations of Professional Ethics. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980. pp. 3-4.

It is interesting that Goldman offers the family as a grounding of the idea of the strongly differentiated roles that provide for norms that can be set apart form and even against those that otherwise obtain and are operative outside of the profession.  It is inside the family that Goldman claims that there are roles whose differentiation derives from the intrinsic value of the relations that define them rather than from the instrumental benefits of recognizing special obligations.  The “special” authority given to parents and obligations to children within the family would obtain in education if the paternalistic model for the provision of ethical responsibilities were operative.  But it is not necessarily the case that the paternalistic model be accepted as the only model and it is not the case that Goldman’s view need be accepted as to the existence of professions in which there are strongly differentiated roles. 

Kenneth Kipnis has provided a critique of Goldman’s claims in which he indicates that the evidence provided to support the existence of strongly differentiated roles is weak when examined carefully. -- Kenneth Kipnis, "Unethical Professionalism: Alan Goldman's Foundations of Professional Ethics", PERSPECTIVES on the Professions, Vol. 3, No. 1/2, March/June 1983

Beyond this Michael Bayles has provided an analysis in which the professions are not possessed of strongly differentiated roles that result in professionals have norms governing their conduct different from or at times set against those outside of the profession.

the norms and thus the basic ethical principles that should guide professional practice and serve as the basis for resolution of moral dilemmas encountered by professionals in the practice of their profession should be identical with, founded upon, or derived from the norms of the society within which the profession exists and which it serves. 

The average citizen needs good reasons to accept the ethical norms that regulate professional practices.  These norms must be justifiable to a reasonable person living in the society in which the norms operate.  A reasonable person is one who is not mentally ill, who has sufficient intelligence to understand the norms and their implications for most concrete situations, and who obtains facts, listens to arguments, and supports his or her views by reasons.  It is assumed here that such people are self-interested with limited benevolence: that is, they do not care for all others as much as for themselves. Norms for professional roles are to be justified by their promoting and preserving the values of liberal society. -- Michael D. Bayles, Professional Ethics , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Inc., 1981. p. 5. 

As to the basis for the norms within a profession Bayles provides an argument that will locate the norms as derivative from and supportive of those of the society that creates and is served by the professions.  Bayles will argue for a fiduciary ethical model and reject paternalism as a basis for ethical decision making except in those situations wherein: 

…some clients are not competent to make decisions.  In this case the paternalistic model becomes appropriate. -Michael D. Bayles, Professional Ethics , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Inc., 1981.p. 69.

So the norms governing any profession are ultimately based on the same norms as are found in general society and which serve the values of that society.  The norms governing any profession are not set out as resting on a position wherein the values being served by the profession entitle professionals to advance the interests and values of their clients above or against the rights and interests of those outside of the profession.  In this manner the profession of education serves the interests of the society which erects and maintains the institution of education while serving the interests of individual students.  This dual orientation for the individual educator will be evidenced in those instances wherein the educator will provide instruction to and forms of interaction with the learner that might be resisted by the learner. 

Professional norms rest on the norms of society which in turn rest on any one of a number of or combination of ethical theories found to be generally acceptable to society.  Society holds professions accountable according to how well they preserve and represent those values.

Professions are to be assessed according to their impact on three distinct groups: the professionals, their clients, and the general public including those close to the clients and the general society….Professional norms must provide a proper balance between the effects on the values of professionals, clients and the public. -- Michael D. Bayles, Professional Ethics , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Inc., 1981. p. 19.

What are the common values of professional educators as humans and as educators that help to define them as a group and serve as the basis for making moral decisions and resolving moral dilemmas?  In answer to that question there may be many values and many ways to illustrate there exemplification in society and in education but or the present purpose it would suffice to name only a few and one in particular that will serve to provide the basis for many norms.  The one primary or basic social value is certainly that education should not harm people. There is the value found in any liberal society that is particularly relevant here of protection from injury.

The chief values relevant to professional ethics are: governance by law, freedom, protection from injury, equality of opportunity, privacy and welfare. Norms for professional roles are to be justified by their promoting and preserving the values of liberal society. -- Michael D. Bayles, Professional Ethics , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Inc., 1981. p 5.

There is thus the obligation to cause no harm because the norms governing the profession of education arise from a specification within the profession of how the general values of society are to be evidenced.   Within the profession of education the specific obligation to cause no harm in the case of a professional educator issues from two sources: the fiduciary relationship of the educator to the learner and from the relationship of an experimenter to the subjects of the experiment.

First, Do No Harm - primo non nocere

There are such principles and such values that do exist and are operative in human intercourse and social organization. In human societies harming an innocent and non-threatening person is considered as a wrongful act.  It is a moral breach.  It is morally incorrect.  There are reasons for this judgment.  There are a variety of basic ethical principles to support the judgment that harming innocent people is a violation of the principle of the good.  Whether as a utilitarian whereby it is almost always a violation of the principle of the good to deliberately harm no less than to do so in a nonchalant fashion or as a Kantian where it is always a breach of the categorical imperative to treat people as a means to end and an end that is not in their own interest or as a Rawlsian where such harms violate the basic notion of justice, such gratuitous acts of harm are immoral acts.  Such an act is one of the few that will immediately come to mind as a counterexample to the claims of the post modern moral relativists that there are no universal ethical principles.  In what societies are deliberate acts of harm acceptable behavior?  Where is it thought to be morally correct to harm other members of one’s own society who are not threatening one’s well being in any way?

From yet another perspective the source of the duty or moral obligation to cause no harm issues from the basic relationship that humans have with other humans and the duties consequent thereto that are recognized the world over in the norms of civilized life and set as a one of the foundation stones for civil society.  And once again it must be reiterated that the special obligation to cause no harm in the case of pedagogic experiments issues from two sources: the fiduciary relationship of the educator to the learner and from the relationship of an experimenter to the subjects of the experiment.

What harms can an educator bring about with the learners? There are a whole host of them that become fairly obvious upon reflection.  That the question of “What possible harm is there in conducting teaching and when attempting to improve upon the effectiveness of that teaching?” can so often be raised in earnest when the topic of pedagogic harm is first brought up bespeaks an indifference to the moral aspect of the relationship of teacher to learner that is so than it is more than a little disturbing and is an index of the level of moral development of the community of professional educators. 

What are the variety of harms to which learners are subject?  There are the possible harms, the necessary harms and the unnecessary and the avoidable and unavoidable harms.

Possible Harms

For some types of learning and for growth there will be the perception and even the experience of harm.  In the changing of minds there can be distress that results as the learners may experience a variety of emotional states of discomfort:

  • Fear of the new

  • Fear of the unknown

  • Fear of loss of hope

  • Feeling threatened by the unknown and the new

  • Fear of the loss of the comfort of familiar beliefs

Necessary Harms 

For some types of learning and for growth there will be the need to produce situations for learning in which there is a definite possibility for some results that would be perceived by the learner as harm but they are necessary experiences for the growth in knowledge, self reflection, critical thinking and growth. These “harms” would include: 

  • Loss of certainty- the creation of doubts

  • Loss of comfort- anxiety over the consequences of change and of the unknown

  • Loss of confidence-feelings of inadequacy

  • Loss of self esteem-feeling ignorant

  • Sense of disloyalty to groups

The single most important necessary harm is the arresting and divesting of the sense of certainty from the learner. Knowledge of uncertainty and of one's own ignorance is healthy and a sign of growth.  Knowledge of that not all is known and that one does not know is needed.  It is propaedeutic to and necessary for learning.  Knowledge of ignorance is not the end but the staring point for learning. 

Education is the progressive discovery of how little we know"- Will Durant

Educators must facilitate the entry of the learner into a discourse that will acknowledge and dispel ignorance.  Education aims to counter the Dogmatism of Ignorance. 

There will be these necessary harms as there is the pain associated with growth.

No pain, No Gain.

The pains and harms associated with education may be thought of as a most important part of what are commonly referred to as "growing pains".

Unnecessary Harms 

For some types of learning and for growth there will be the need to produce situations for learning in which there is a definite possibility for some results that would be perceived by the learner as harm but they are not necessary experiences for the growth in knowledge, self reflection, critical thinking and growth. These “harms” would be gratuitous.  They include: 

  • Feeling hopeless

  • Feeling helpless

  • Feeling ashamed

Professional educators should make every effort to avoid these outcomes.  They are harmful to the learning process itself.  Interactions of educators with learners that are insulting or demeaning are to be avoided as they are both directly harmful to the person of the learner and stultifying to the learning process and poison the relationship of learner to educator. 

The feeling of being hopeless or helpless due to accepting that one is in error or held a false belief is not based on fact and can be both avoided and remedied if it emerges out of instruction.   Fear is natural in the face of the unknown and so if there is to be a displacement from what has been held as known and true but falsely so there should be the notion that there is an alternative to complete ignorance.  There is that which is better established and closer to the truth than that which is to be or has been challenged and proven false or inconsistent or contradictory.  Learners can learn that we all learn from our mistakes and that science learns more from that which does not prove to be so than from that which was suspected and proven to be the case.  They can learn the process or habit of mind that continually examines what is thought to be known and to be true and learn that it is self correcting and makes progress over time.  Learners must come to understand that because not everything is known does not mean that nothing is known.  That mistakes are made does not mean that all is mistaken.  That to have made a mistake is not to be ignorant and bereft of the ability to learn.

"I know this is a stupid question but..."

"I am so dumb for thinking that..."

"I can't believe that I thought that was true! What a .. I must be."

The learner must be educated to understand and accept that to admit ignorance or a mistake is not grounds for shame but it opens the possibility for learning.

Possible Harms to Learners as Subjects of Pedagogic Experimentation: 

If there is a change in a pedagogic technique (research-experiment) or a new instructional design utilized by an educator such changes could result in some learners not doing so well as they may have had there not been that change made.  To not do as well constitutes a harm to the learner and it can be manifest in a variety of ways.  The following is a partial list and single learners can experience more than one of these harms from a single change in pedagogy.

Academic

  • --completion rate

  • --success rate-GPA

  • --inability to perform at the next level of study

  • --inability to use skills that are needed post study

Social

  • --inability to function as a fully educated member of a democratic society

Psychological

  • --decrease in self esteem

--negative impact on future educational success (cf. Bluestone, 2004 on self-efficacy)

Economic

  • --loss of time

  • --loss of tuition 

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How are educators to go about dealing with moral dilemmas and ethical issues in education?  Are professional codes, moral codes of any help?  What about the law and state regulations, are they a moral guide?

Moral Codes and Ethical Principles 

What is the relation of moral codes and ethical principles to legal regulations?  What is the relation of the ethical codes that are operative with professional researchers in some disciplines to ethical principles?     

Many researchers appear to think that as long as the IRB review process has been cleared then all is as well as can be expected.  There is the equating of morality with compliance with legal regulations.

Law and Morality: the relationship

Morality- rules of right conduct concerning matters of greater importance. Violations of such can bring disturbance to individual conscience and social sanctions.

Law- rules which are enforced by society. Violations may bring a loss of or reduction in freedom and possessions.

What is the relation of law to morality? They are not the same and thus you can not equate the two. Just because something is immoral does not make it illegal and just because something is illegal it does not make it immoral.  There are many examples to support this view as being obviously true.

Things that are illegal but are thought to be moral (for many)!

·         Drinking under age.

·         Driving over the speed limit.

·         Smoking marijuana.

·         Cheating on a tax return.

·         Splitting a cable signal to send it to more than one television.

People do not think of themselves or of others as being immoral for breaking these laws.

Things that are immoral (for many) but are not illegal.

·         Cheating on your spouse.

·         Breaking a promise to a friend.

·         Using abortion as a birth control measure.

People can not be arrested or punished with imprisonment or fines for doing these things.

What is the relation of morality to law? Well, when enough people think that something is immoral they will work to have a law that will forbid it and punish those that do it.  When enough people think that something is moral, they will work to have a law that forbids it and punishes those that do it repealed.   So it is established that: Legal Standards are NOT the same as Moral Standards

In Education there is, for example:

·        Deciding who to educate by what methodologies

·        Deciding how much to charge for an education

·        Deciding on methods of compensation for educators

·        Using drugs with specific learners in classroom environments

·        Use of screening devices and high stakes tests

These questions involve moral issues but the law does not specify a particular course of conduct. Law codifies customs, ideals, beliefs and moral values in society.  Law does not establish moral criteria or standards.

Oaths and Codes

Educators and researchers belong to professional organizations. They take oaths at graduation ceremonies and at inductions into professional societies. Are these effective in providing guidance for educators confronted with moral dilemmas and problems? Apparently not.

Educators and researchers have codes of conduct issued by professional societies and organizations and even by state authorities. Are these not effective in resolving moral dilemmas and providing a moral guide? Apparently not.

New York State Code of Ethics for Educators.  2004. 

            http://www.highered.nysed.gov/tcert/resteachers/codeofethics.htm

Oaths and codes are products of a pre- technological age. They hearken back towards the medieval guilds. They focus on the welfare of the guild and its members above all else and then on the accomplishment of that for which members of the guild are trained to do.

In Education the problems with such codes are numerous:

1. There is a marked emphasis on obtaining data within legal limits concerning the efficacy of pedagogy and no attention to other aims of educators. In this they are out of date in not considering let alone providing guidance for providing education while conducting pedagogic research and exercising social responsibility.

2. They are issued in language which is quite general. The generality is associated with both ambiguity and vagueness and in need of interpretation in order to determine a meaning precise enough and relevant to particular situations.

3. They do not anticipate changes in practice and organizational patterns and leave the problem of how to resolve conflicts unanswered.

4. They do not acknowledge the underlying values upon which they rest. They give no insight into the basic ethical principles from which moral rules and guidance can be derived.

In examining the codes for various groups of researchers involved in education it is fairly easy to realize a number of problems exist with them:

1. Conflict with one another and even internally

2. The professional code often conflicts with the individual professionals own moral beliefs with no guidance for resolving the conflict

3. The codes do not cover all situations and dilemmas

4. The professional codes do not contain moral principles at all

Purpose of Oaths and Codes

As the "moral" codes or "ethical" codes of conduct for professional groups are not really ethical codes at all just what are they? They appear to be codes of conduct intended to produce a particular set of results.

·         They are intended to bind social groups together. They bring the professionals into a close knit group.

·         They express aims and aspirations of the group.

·         They promote integrity, dedication and principled behavior in accord with the goals and aims of the group.

The earliest of the codes are thus more oriented towards the group and not towards anyone served by the group. It is no surprise then that members of these groups feel a greater allegiance towards one another than to those whose interests they ostensibly are to serve.

As modern science and technology have drastically changed the nature of health care in the last one hundred years there has been a great need to reexamine the very nature and value of such codes.

In a number of ways the impact of technology has been to cause people to question the basic values involved with education. This questioning naturally leads to an examination of basic ethical principles.

Professional Codes of Conduct and Common Sense are insufficient to handle the problems that arise.

There are the problems of:

  • Application of the Codes to actual situations

  • Variety of codes from various professional organizations that have no order of priority

  • Vagueness of codes making it difficult to determine the precise meaning

  • Inconsistency, conflicting guidance in and between codes

  • Questionable morality of the codes , e.g., on privacy, exposure to risk, denial of autonomy

The Professional codes have more to do with etiquette, social and economic niceties and maintaining a monopoly than with morality.

Codes are not normative; they are anachronistic and are thus objectionable.  Codes and oaths establish a special relationship amongst those who take it that sets them apart from the general public.  It establishes a relationship of debt and obligation amongst the professionals.  Towards the recipients of their care the oath establishes a relationship of largess. There is the need for moral principles grounded in ethical theory and not in some form of social etiquette or set of voluntary arrangements.

Oaths and codes cannot take the place of ethical theory and principle as providing a foundation for moral decision making and action.

Therefore, there is the definite and pronounced need for ethical theory and guidance in applying ethical theory to specific moral dilemmas and problems. Such applications would reflect the most common and basic values of the society served by the institution of education.

What are some of the moral problems that arise for educators?  Many are listed immediately below and then are dealt with in subsequent chapters.

I. Ethical Concerns related to the Professions

There are the most general ethical or moral problems found in nearly every profession.  These include:

  • Serving the requests of clients

  • Appropriate scope of service

  • Types of fees

  • Conflicts of interest

  • Conflicts between clients

  • Obligations to inform clients

  • Obligations to others beyond the client and to society

  • Ethics of research

  • Informing on the ethics or behavior of colleagues

 II. Ethical Concerns related to Education

The most significant ethical issues with regard to education arise from the very nature of the act of educating someone.  Beyond that the most significant issues arise from the social role that the institution of education is to serve. These matters will be the topic of chapter seven which will deal with the ethics of education and matters associated with changing Habits of Mind.

Serving the requests of clients :Tolerance

While tolerance is promoted as a value in a pluralistic society to what degree, if any, should educators be tolerant of sets of beliefs and habits of mind that establish those beliefs?  All students as learners, beginning with the very young, hold beliefs that are in conflict with one another and with empirical evidence.  Is education to remediate that situation?  If students object claiming that they have a right to their beliefs is such a claim to be recognized and accepted by educators?

Obligations to others beyond the client and to society :Whose benefit?

There are times when dealing with learners that questions arise as to the appropriateness or acceptability of a program of instruction or a lesson or a mode of instruction and those questions result from there not being a clear indication of what benefit there is to the learner. Whose benefit is being produced?  Is it that of the individual learner, that of society itself, or both at once? How is it that the educator handles the conflict between serving the interests of society in having education support the increase in human intellectual capital to be shared by all in society and serving the interests of the individual learner in increasing the individual's abilities to grow and to occupy a certain desirable position in the social order, principally through some vocation?

Obligations to inform clients : Paternalism 

To what extent are educators to act out of paternalism with those whom they serve?

Potential for Harm 

How are educators to avoid causing harm when they need to cause some pain as education involves growth and the changing of the contents of minds?  See the chapter on the Ethical Issues involving Changing Habits of Mind for a response to this issue.

Privacy for both students and faculty  

The teacher student relationship is a relationship of persons and often that is in and of itself sufficient to generate concerns for and obligations for providing for and preserving privacy.  The relationship is also a fiduciary relationship and as such the teacher is obliged to safeguard the student and that is the basis to protect the student from potentially harmful observations and from information concerning the student becoming available to those not involved in the relationship by necessity.

Confidentiality

As with other fiduciary relationships teachers often need to have information from the students concerning their backgrounds and life situations.  This information would not be as forthcoming if the students did not expect that the information would be kept in confidence and held and used in a manner that would not harm or jeopardize them.  For the same reasons that doctors and lawyers must be able to pledge confidentiality and to protect and insure confidentiality so too are educators obliged to provide for the same safeguarding of information obtained from those whom they must benefit and protect.   Information obtained from students by request or by their volunteering it must be kept confidential if it is such that it offers any reasonable chance to harm the student in any manner.   Educators as professionals and as licensed professionals are to be bound by the same laws as govern professions with regard to confidentiality.  Where law requires reporting of information otherwise to be kept confidential educators may provide it.  Students reporting incidences of abuse or neglect from their guardians are examples of cases where confidentiality may be breached and even there is it in the interest of serving the students as fiduciary and holder of their trust.

Privacy and the Classroom

Not only should there be privacy in the dealings of the teacher with the student on an individual basis but also with groups of students, classes.  Why should there be an expectation of privacy in the classroom?  Why should there be a right to privacy in a classroom that often is occupied by many people?  The answer that provides the basis for both the right and expectation of privacy is located the basic teaching and learning that is expected to go in the classroom. 

There are at least three types of privacy: physical, social and psychological. While the teaching and learning process involves all three of these, physical privacy, however, is active as a concern only in the physical classroom and not the virtual classroom.   Physical privacy relates to our bodies and not just to our "private parts".  It is of great value in relation to self image and self esteem and to the basic sense of self.  As we age few of us are prepared to have others see us as we first arise from our beds in the morning.  We need to prepare to go out into the public sphere and for that we put on our public face and at times our 'game face".  Social privacy relates to the ways in which we interact with others and that involves the various forms of being with others.  We have reasons why we do not want others to observe our communications with certain others be they in written form or facial expressions or oral expression or electronic data transfers.   The observations of others intrudes upon and alters the nature of the private relationship with the particular other and can even on occasion destroy not only the intended communication or transmission of feeling but even the relationship.  Psychological privacy involves the very thoughts and feelings of the human.  Such privacy is needed for the development and preservation of the individual self.  Some particularly cruel forms of torture aim at destroying resistance by destroying the individual sense of self through violations of all forms of privacy but in particular the psychological realm.

What has this to do with teaching and learning?  It is not an accident that in all the classrooms the door is usually closed.  From my kindergarten class to the university class or graduate seminar the classroom is for the teacher and the students with the door usually kept closed and others in by invitation or with permission.  The door is closed to prevent distractions and as a provision for establishing a space where teacher and students alike feel safe with one another in “their” class, in “their” space. 

In the relationship between the instructor and the learner there needs to be a degree of trust on the part of each for the other.  Often instructors are attempting to lead from (educate) the student the enunciation of their opinions, views and beliefs and induce in them a critical thinking process and so at times those closely held thoughts are going to be subjected to a critical review and promptings to reflect upon them for possible reconsideration.  The student is expected to do this in the classroom (physical or virtual) with fellow students who are sharing in the experience and are being encouraged to do likewise.  There is the expectation that there will be honest communications occurring. Now insert into this the possibility that at any time parties unknown may be viewing or listening in on what is going on without the foreknowledge or forewarning.  It is not only reasonable to think but well warranted to conclude, based on observing students during classes when "outsiders" are present in the room, that the students will be more guarded and reserved and perhaps less honest.  The presence of the one not involved in the exchanges and not having a stake in the enterprise is not usually a presence that is contributing in a positive manner to the actual exchanges.  They are distractions at best and interference at worst even an inhibiting factor.

Privacy and Students  

Beyond the concern for the impact on the effectiveness of the pedagogic program there is the concern for the impact on the student.  If students are revealing personal information during some classroom exchanges expecting only those present to share in it then the availability and dissemination of this information to other parties beyond that classroom may violate federal statutes and regulations with regard to their privacy.

Some students are quite sensitive and anxious about appearing before others and in particular to speaking before or with others in the classroom.  Some take quite a while to open up in class.  There are many reasons for the reticence including personal appearance, language skills and self esteem issues.   What does the possibility that someone is observing such a student who is not known to that student do to comfort level and the willingness to participate in the instructional program?  Instructors are responsible to create and maintain an environment conducive to learning.  Having strangers in the classroom and unannounced visitors and, worse still, official observers, is not likely to be supportive to that effort.  So, students have a concern for their physical, social and psychological privacy within the classroom space.

Privacy and Faculty

Faculty may want the classroom to be a private place restricted to teacher and learners for a number of reasons related to instruction.  Any or all of these reasons can be overridden on occasion or for entire semesters.  Faculty want to develop a set of relationships to the learners and the class as a whole and intrusions of strangers or outsiders into the class space threaten a disruption of those relationships.   It takes a teacher a while to develop those relationships with learners to the point where the teacher has gained or earned the trust of the student and a feeling that the teacher will serve and protect the student. 

Faculty understand that as they receive their initial appointment they will be subject to evaluation of their performance in a number of spheres and not the least of which is their teaching.  They need to know that such observations that are part of that process will be done fairly and in a manner intended to assist them in the development of their teaching effectiveness.  Faculty need to know when they will be observed and how they will be observed so as not to feel  threatened by surprise visits and surreptitious observations that might not obtain the whole picture of what is going on in that class lacking the appropriate understanding of context.

In time faculty develop a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction and a sense of comfort along with the continuing sense of being challenged and needing to do more with and for their students.   The seasoned veterans care little about surprise visits except for their student's sakes and may even invite others into the class for presentations and participation in exchanges.  The tenured faculty has little to fear in opening their doors except for the potential distractions and disruptions to the presentation of instruction and the learning exercises.

Faculty as well as students have a concern for their physical, social and psychological privacy while engaged in the activities of instruction, advising and counseling.  There are varying degrees of concern given the basic personality types of faculty and the subject matters taught and the groups of students and their physical learning spaces.  At times some care greatly and others at times some care not at all.  The degree of concern may relate most directly with the years of experience and with achievement of tenure.

So, there is often a need for the various forms of privacy in the classroom whether it is a physical or virtual space and this is the case because of what should be going on in that space.

III. Ethical Concerns related to Pedagogic Research 

Educators have a professional responsibility to improve on the efficacy of their instruction.  This in turn leads to the obligations to conduct research.  That research will necessarily involve experimentation with human subjects, at least their own students.  There are ethical issues related to the performance of such experiments. Many of those matters will be the topic of chapter eight which will deal with the ethics of pedagogic experimentation with human subjects.

From Hutchings--

Is it necessary to have permission to use excerpts from student papers, or data from their exams, in my scholarship of teaching and learning?

If so, what kind of permission is appropriate, and how should it be secured?

Should I (must I?) submit my project design to the campus Institutional Review Board (IRB), which monitors work with human subjects?

Do I need their informed consent to begin my work? To publish it?

The scholarship of teaching and learning calls on us to “make teaching community property” (Lee Shulman’s phrase), but what are the appropriate boundaries between public and private?

 Who own what goes on in the classroom?

Who benefits, and who is at risk, when the complex dynamics of teaching and learning are documented and publicly represented?

Potential for Harm 

How is to be resolved that any new pedagogy might result in harm to some of the learners involved with it or subject to it?

How is it justifiable to subject learners to potential harm by requiring that they get involved with sets of experiences with which they have no prior experiences? 

How is it possible to arrange for research subjects to withdraw from participation in a pedagogic experiment when doing so constitutes harm or exposes them to further harm such as a loss of credits or progress towards the next level or grade? 

How is it justified to continue to use pedagogies that are indicated to be less effective, if not harmful, than others that have been shown to be more effective? 

If there is a control group involved in pedagogic research and the experimental group is performing better and learning more should the control group continue on using what becomes more and more apparent as a lees effective pedagogic technique? 

Experimental Design and Methodology 

How are conflicts between the role of educator-teacher and that of educator-researcher to be resolved?  Must the experiment be done? Must it continue the full course of the original plan? 

How does being a participant in a pedagogic experiment influence what the learner does?  Does it work against establishing claims that the results are replicable under similar circumstances of the learners without consideration of their status as self conscious research subjects? 

Informed Consent 

How is it possible to obtain an informed consent or its equivalent when there are no other options available to the learner?  There is only the one class? 

How informed can informed consent be with learners who are very young or unfamiliar with all the implications of the work? 

How consensual can informed consent be when the educator-researcher holds so much influence and power over the learner-subject? 

How is it possible to obtain an informed consent or its equivalent when the context is one of a total institution wherein choices are severely limited and exercising an option out of the research exposes the learner to loss of some benefit or to some harm?  Is it proper to require students to participate in the research or to conduct research on themselves and their peers as part of a course requirement? 

How does informing learners that they are part of an experiment influence their work and skew the results that are meant to be generalized to all similar cases of learners and not just to experimental subjects? 

How much time and how many resources should be devoted to research with a group of learners when compared to continuing with the proven effective pedagogy already in place?  Does such research necessarily degrade or put at risk the quality of the pedagogy already in place? 

“The class is a class first and a research laboratory second; the students are students first and research subjects second.  Under this view, and change in course design or content to promote a research should be subject to the condition that it at least not detract from the educational value of the course.

                Peter Markie, quoted in ibid, p. 29

Privacy and Confidentiality 

How is the need to make public the research balanced against the need to keep private the sources of information? 

How are the identities of the learners to be safeguarded when the pedagogic technique being tested has learners producing work that when the research is made public can identify them? 

How is a test site to be kept confidential when the details of the testing site are relevant to a careful and critical consideration of the finings and for any attempt to apply the tested pedagogy in a similar setting?  The details need to be reported and yet doing so presents a possible exposure of the test subjects. 

How are reports of the failures of learners or their initial starting points beset with difficulties to be reported so as to not subject the learners to the psychological harm caused by possible exposure and consequent embarrassment? 

To what extent should the learner-subjects be acknowledged for their contributions to the research? 

To what extent must the learner-subjects be acknowledged for their contributions to the research? 

Under what circumstances is privacy to be protected while still acknowledging the contributions made by the learner –subjects?  How is it possible to do both?

“Are the transactions among students and faculty members, and the work that students do in the classroom, a form of privileged communication, analogous to the work of a therapist or lawyer?  Or are they, in Shulman’s phrase, ‘community property’”

                Hutchings 2003, p. 31

Research Obligations

To what extent are educators morally bound to conduct research into the literature of pedagogy before attempting their own pedagogic experiments?

To what extent are educators morally bound to conduct research themselves involving experimental projects?

To what extent are educators morally bound to publish their experiences and findings with regard to pedagogic developments and research efforts?

“The ‘pedagogical imperative’ includes the obligation to inquire into the consequences of one’s work with students.  This is an obligation that devolves on individual faculty member, on programs, on institutions, and even on disciplinary communities.

Shulman 1992, p. vii 

Research Strategies and Techniques

 How is informed consent to be obtained in research involving surveys where the consent procedure would not influence the responses of those surveyed? 

Paternalism 

To what extent can an educator exercise paternalism in the design, management and conducting of pedagogic experiments with minors and the incapacitated.

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@copyright 2004 by S. Kincaid and P. Pecorino

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