In the rest of this chapter, however, we shall explore a number of not unrelated 210 PARTICULAR ISSUES particular difficulties which are liable to arise on any professional conception of teaching as concerned with moral influence through personal example. The apparent frequency with which we can recall the personalities and characters of our teachers long after we have forgotten what they actually taught us, greatly reinforces the suspicion that teachers have, by personal example, something of a modelling effect on the ETHICAL ISSUES AND THE TEACHER 215 development of young people. Thus, it is hardly surprising that we encounter a fundamentally shared moral grammar of attitude and value behind surface socio-cultural differences: common subscription to the moral importance of honesty, loyalty, self-control, fairness, courage, compassion, and so on. To conceive education only in terms of diverse practices of social or vocational initiation, developed in response to local need, is to offer little or no objective rational basis for regarding teaching as a matter of principled obedience to more general professional imperatives. It is a conceptually bastard notion, riven with irresolvable contradictions. ), The Semi-Professions and their Organization: Teachers, Nurses and Social Workers, London: Collier-Macmillan, 1969. Popper, K.R., Conjectures and Refutations, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969. It was the view of Neill, largely influenced by Homer Lane, that there could be no real understanding of the social importance and significance of following rules in the absence of some understanding of the freedoms and burdens of responsible authority: the two were considered to go hand in hand. It is a mistake precisely because any understanding to be derived from knowledge of an educational discipline cannot and should not be expected to inform or contribute to the professional competence of capacity in the same way that guided experience and opportunities for practice contribute to dispositional competence. On this view, it is only through the AIMS OF EDUCATION, SCHOOLING & TEACHING 177 clearest possible understanding of how things actually are, rather than how they take them or would wish them to be, that human agents have any hope of escape from Platos cave15 of ignorance and superstition into the sweetness and light of responsible selfdetermination. See, generally, Kohlberg, L., Essays on Moral Development: Volumes I-III, New York: Harper Row, 1984. For irrespective of any and all reasonable points of comparison between teaching and such other occupations as the priesthood, nursing, social work, plumbing, medicine and commerce, it should also be clear that there are tensions and potential inconsistencies between such comparisons, and that there could be no possible reconciliation of all of them in one coherent conception of educational professionalism. It is of some interest here that professional educationalists, not least those inspired by the post-war liberal educational ideal, have always been keenly aware of the potential threat to education represented by such external agencies and pressures as parents, the state and the economy. 6 TEACHING AND COMPETENCE 1 See National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ), General National Vocational Qualifications, London: National Council for Vocational Qualifications, 1991a; NCVQ, Criteria for National Vocational Qualifications, London: National Council for Vocational Qualifications, 1991b. To this extent, educational progressives or radicals may also be onto something in claiming that the teacher needs to be perceived by pupils TEACHING AND EDUCATION 17 as someone who is on their side, and that too much emphasis on the formal professional role of the teacher could serve to undermine the best quality of relationship between teachers and pupils, though some progressives have doubtless gone too far in wanting to purge education of any element of external authority. One trouble with conceiving the role of the teacher primarily in terms of managerial and other skills is that it is precisely liable to encourage the kind of instrumental or 216 PARTICULAR ISSUES consequentialist thinking about education which opens a dangerous space between ends and means. At all events, it is clear that an ethical dimension of professional practice features quite explicitly in the third criterionas well as implicitly in others; moreover, once we begin to explore conceptual connections between the criteria, it should become clear that all are implicated in the ethical in ways which serve to lend a distinct character to professional as opposed to other occupational concerns. Thus, we do not discover by neutral and disinterested empirical observation and experiment that exposition, enquiry, discussion and activity are the main elements of educationally acceptable instruction (otherwise why do we not also come up with brainwashing? ), The Basic Works of Aristotle, New York: Random House, 1941, pp. For issues and problems concerning education and the market, see Bridges, D. and McLaughlin, T.H. The first would rest on the charge of elitismof regarding some occupations, such as medicine, law or teaching, as of greater social importance than others. 1 PHIL 232: Ethics and Professional Responsibility in Computer Science An Introduction The Prometheus Story The title of our textbook - A Gift of Fire - is an allusion to ancient Greek mythology. However, I shall try in subsequent chapters (especially in Part II) to make it in my own way, not least because it also seems to me that the logical geography of the professional theory-practice problem has not yet, especially in relation to education and teaching, been adequately explored. In this connection, however, it is interesting to observe that one common feature of what we have called paternalist and liberal moral educational conceptions is that both go a long way towards taking responsibility for moral reflection altogether out of the hands of teachers, as though such reflection was really none of their business. ), Professions and Professionalisation, London: Cambridge University Press, 1970; Johnson, J.T., Professions and Power, London: Macmillan, 1981; Larson, M.S., The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis , London: Marion Boyars, 1977; Parsons, T., Professions, in D.L. Just as watching the odd horror movie on television is unlikely to turn the casual viewer into a mad axe murderer, so almost inevitable contact with at least one teacher who is a thoroughly bad lot is unlikely to corrupt and deprave those with whom he or she comes in contact. However, material from this earlier venture did survive in the form of two presently pertinent papers which were eventually published in late 1992. The role of rule, principle and habituation Still, a certain degree of basic moral habituation does seem presupposed to effective moral education in a not dissimilar way (as Aristotle first recognised6) to that in which a good musical education requires the acquisition of certain basic musical skills: for essentially the same reason, that acquiring moral qualities or virtues, like becoming good at music or any other worthwhile pursuit, is a matter of practical difficulty. However, even as (for example) a Catholic, it is by no means inconsistent of me to believe that Catholicism is the one true faith and to wish that the whole world might be converted, yet accept the fact that Protestants, Hindus and Muslims will for their part desire, and should therefore be accorded, the same right as myself to rear their own children in their own faiths and values. To this end, during the 1960s and 1970s most college courses of teacher education required systematic initiation into what were regarded as the principal educational disciplines of philosophy, psychology, sociology, history and curriculum studies, andthough it remained an ideal to recruit teacher trainers who were able to combine academic expertise with experience of school teachingit was not unusual for those employed in teaching these disciplines to be drawn from the academic ranks of philosophical, psychological or sociological scholarship, rather than (or as well as) from those of school experience. Competence, Education and NVQs: Dissenting Perspectives, London: Cassell, 1994. At a more particular level of 144 PROFESSIONAL VALUES AND ETHICAL OBJECTIVITY practical application, then, it is not inconceivable that educational strategies for the development of self-determination which work for emotionally secure children might not work for damaged children, and vice versa. The absence of any such rule does not, of course, mean that we cannot get matters right or wrong, for we are quite often able to judge with hindsight that we did the right or (perhaps more commonly) the wrong thing. 7 Kohlberg, L., Essays on Moral Development: Volumes I-III, New York: Harper Row, 1984. (eds), Managing Partnership in Teacher Training and Development, London: Routledge, 1995; also, Furlong, J. and Maynard, T., Mentoring Student Teachers, London: Routledge, 1995. However, when theory and practice are respectively taken to mean college study and school experienceas often seems to be the case in issues about balancethe question invariably comes down to that of whether there is too much academic study in relation to experiential school-based learning. At the very least, any such sweeping claim blurs too many significant differences between types or levels of moral disagreement or dilemma. On the other hand, however, we may be right to insist upon more principled fidelity to 208 PARTICULAR ISSUES honesty, upon trying to get someone to face up to the painful truth about their betrayal by a friend or spouse, even when we know that the plain truth may hurt them. I do think, as we shall see, that there are difficulties about thinking of teaching in the same professional terms as medicine or law. Hence, in so far as it would be difficult not to hold that proper professional conduct, at any rate conduct performed in a professional role, should at the very least fall within the law, the case for regarding illegal conduct as unprofessional, and as therefore absolute grounds for dismissal, seems clear enough. More on the uses of moral reason Although these are different cases of value conflict, it might be thought that what they have in common is that rational deliberation is utterly impotent to resolve them. Indeed, what may principally help to inform a teachers practice here is the recognition of a certain degree of conflict or inconsistency between theoretical and pre-theoretical (or ordinary moral) understandings of the nature of human life. Chapter 11 is concerned to examine different conceptions of the widely acknowledged moral educational dimension of the teachers role and is essentially a revised version of a tract entitled The Moral Role of the Teacher which was first commissioned by the Scottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum for publication in their Perspectives on Values series (1996). While such internality does not imply that there cannot be truth and error in the realm of moral understanding, it does completely undermine any conception of valueneutral professional competence. For example, it is clear that widely different notions of freedom and disciplineindeed of what it is to learn as such are enshrined in liberal and religiously-grounded concepts of education. As previously indicated, moreover, there can be little doubt that questions of this kind are deeply implicated in professional disputes about the proper direction of education. From this perspective, it may well be that we have not always (or not yet) managed to fix some of these distinctions in the best or most useful of ways: there may be grey areas which leave us hard put to know whether someone should be characterised for medical, educational or legal purposes as mad or bad, emotionally disturbed or intellectually retarded.3 Equally, however, to the extent that some such distinctions are the very cornerstones of all intelligibly recognisable human practices or institutions of education, medicine and law, it would hardly make much sense to speak in their absence of human society and culture at all. Celebration of Awareness, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973b. The culture with which it is the task of education to acquaint at least those individuals capable of benefiting from it is the very flower of human philosophical, artistic, scientific, technological, moral and spiritual achievement. 17 Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, Book 6, Chapter 3, in McKeon, op. It is therefore arguable that any attempt to reduce those highly important and rightly valued professional competenciesthat repertoire of practical skills, sensibilities and aptitudes which is indeed required by teachers for the successful prosecution of their professionto some inventory of discretely specifiable, causally effective dispositions, courts a quasi-behaviourist caricature of the more general capacity sense of professional competence. The theory and practice relationship in teacher training, in M. Wilkin, V.J. Indeed, as a parent, one might well come to regret quite seriously having not more strictly disciplined a child in so far as such lack of discipline may seem to have contributed significantly to his or her life of dissolution, self-destruction or crime. After discussing the moral implications of professionalism, Carr explores the relationship of education theory to teaching practice and the impact of this relationship on professional expertise. See Platos Gorgias, in E.Hamilton and H.Cairns, op. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. There are also, however, certain crucial logical differences between these two sorts of practical deliberation, and perhaps the most significant of these is that whereas technical deliberation involves reasoning between means and ends conceived as only externally, contingently or causally related, means require to be construed as internally, logically or constitutively related to ends in the case of moral or evaluative deliberation. However, despite the fact that at least one substantial educational reputation has been established in academia on the basis of an attempt to test empirically which of these two traditionally opposed educational theories best works in practice,13 it ought to be clear that any such experimental programme can only rest on a mistake about the status of traditionalism and progressivism as educational views. Thus, in any attempt to find a coherent way between the theory-dependence and theoryindependence views of professional practice, it is crucial to appreciate that there can be meaningful construal of and/or reasonable responses to the particularities of professional experience which are neither matters of technical application of the causal generalities of scientific theory, nor of intuitive non-deliberative engagement with unconceptualised or unconceptualis-able practical experience. The standards for ethics and professionalism in physical therapy are established by the following APTA policies: Code of Ethics for the Physical Therapist. This insightful book will instil confidence in teachers and middle leaders as they face such ethical dilemmas in their daily work. It is important to emphasise here that this sense is focused upon the idea that enterprises such as medicine, law and (arguably) education are implicated in questions and considerations of a particular ethical or moral character which are not to the forefront of, for instance, plumbing, joinery, auto-repair, wholesale or retail and hairdressing,1 although they are also not well typified by the more intimate personal transactions into which individuals may enter with their religious confessors or psychotherapists (despite the fact that such relationships will also invariably exhibit clear professional dimensions). But we also know, from the findings of modern field sociologists and anthropologists, that cultures vary to the point of mutual contradiction in their beliefs, values and practices. standards of professionalism and ethics. To begin with, differences between so-called educational traditionalists and RIVAL CONCEPTIONS OF EDUCATION 135 progressives concern issues of human development and well-being which lie at the very heart of professional educational endeavour. See Platos Meno, in E.Hamilton and H.Cairns (eds), op. In the first instance, any such procedure rides somewhat roughshod over an important distinction between the prescriptive and descriptive aspects of professional normativity. NOTES 249 10 Post-structuralism is that historicist form of constructivism associated with such writers as Derrida, Foucault, Bataille and Levinas. Intra-school value conflict But if democratic sensibilities are to include giving a serious hearing to dissenting views and policies, how far can such dissent be allowed to go without dangerously undermining the effective prosecution of school business? I believe, incidentally, that it is largely on just such an assumption that teacher trainers are perennially inclined to resort to various operational strategies which might appear to plug the embarrassing gap between theory and practice.18 Thus, for example, one might relocate the theoretical activities of the college tutor in the school context, encouraging him or her to focus on only those aspects of his or her theories which might have immediate relevance to the particular features of that educational situation. Thus, a person might embrace a particular religious faith for purely personal reasons; he or she approves of the ethical values of that faith, gains considerable aesthetic satisfaction from attending services, derives much spiritual solace from its sacraments or devotions, and so on. A good educational illustration of this, I think, is to be found in proposals of previously considered social and educational theorists5 to provide an alternative non-literary or vocational schooling for some young people on grounds of their allegedly non-academic bent or inferior ability. What, however, of the possibility of grounding the professional-ity of teachers in universal educational values? Early childhood educators are keenly aware of the importance of a childs transition to real school. This transition is occurring earlier in a childs life now that school districts nationwide are moving to pre-kindergarten experiences for 3- and 4-year olds. 5 Ibid., Book VI and generally. Whether or not such disagreements are fatally damaging to professional debate about the role of education in human development, moreover, may turn ultimately upon the extent to which subscription to traditionalism or progressivism, or to a given religious faith, is fairly construable in terms of club membership. I first made a large-scale attempt to understand moral education in virtue-ethical terms in Educating the Virtues (Routledge 1991) and the co-edited collection Virtue Ethics and Moral Education (D.Carr and J.Steutel, Routledge 1999) represents a more recent (and I think more successful) effort in this direction. ), The Moral Law, London: Hutchinson, 1948. 45. In short, we may now be free of all remaining doubt that moral training is itself partly constitutive of moral understanding, for it is only through elementary moral rulefollowing that children can come to acquire basic first-hand experience of the meaning and value of, for example, generosity or co-operation: that is, some idea of the reciprocal benefits of dispositions for positive human association. See Carr, D., Educational enquiry and professional knowledge, Educational Studies, 20, 1994, pp. Indeed, it seems to be a fairly common sociological view that such distinctions reflect little more than differences of social or class status perhaps a relic of medieval guild or other restricted practices. These rather different epistemological and social/moral-theoretical perspectives have of late been widely combined in the heady cocktail of postmodernism, and the general product of this juxtaposition is catchily summed up in the now familiar claim of one of the leading gurus of this movement that there are no overarching metanarratives.17 Truth is irredeemably, on this account, both particular and perspectival. Similarly, when politicians start to take an interest in the moral aspects of formal education or schooling it is usually in response to public concern about one form of juvenile misdemeanour or other, and, once more, teachers are liable to be the focus of criticism for having let standards of discipline decline.3 Moreover, although I believe that scapegoating schools and teachers for the current moral discontents and maladies of society is for the most part misdirected, dishonest and mischievous, I am not at all inclined to ridicule or belittle the genuine concerns of parents and the general public about the uncivil and anti-social behaviour of many young people which our schools so often seem unable to counteract. Guidelines for Teacher Training Courses, Edinburgh: SOED, 1993. 10 Humes, W., The Leadership Class in Scottish Education, Glasgow: Bell and Brain Ltd, 1986. Indeed, those who through choice or necessity remain in the classroom throughout their careers may well be regarded as professional failures by their colleagues who have got on. However, although these different purposes need not be seen as necessarily conflicting, this does to some extent make the school curriculum a field of difficult negotiation between different human developmental interests. From this viewpoint, creating positive school ethos should begin with the cultivation of positive relationships of trust and respect, rather than conclude with the writing of school mission statements of commitment to strict observance of justice, respect and equal opportunities. Hence, we are not denying that it makes good sense to regard the activities of university academics, plumbers, airline pilots, footballers, and so on, as professional or unprofessional, in the handy evaluative senses in which these terms are commonly used; the point is rather, in the light of the different senses of professional marked in the previous chapter, that such talk does not in the least license regarding plumbing, footballing or even air pilotry as professions in that more specific sense which serves to distinguish medicine, law or (arguably) education from trades, industry or merchantry. For if we take the view that there is no reason for our educational practices other than that this is the way we as progressives or Catholics do things, then we have closed ourselves off from anything worth calling professional accountability with respect to such important questions. These codes of conduct raise a number of questions about the status of a profession and the consequent moral implications for behaviour. A potential error here is to suppose that there are rationally neutral strategies of ethical analysis, of, perhaps, Kohlbergian dilemma resolution or utilitarian calculation,1 which would allow us to return unequivocally positive or negative responses to given ethical questions, or decisively adopt one course of action over another in the teeth of moral conflict or dilemma. This is likely to include acquaintance with questions about what is of educational value in curriculum terms, what constitutes just and equal educational access, what counts as morally acceptable (and not just technically efficient) pedagogyas well as some appreciation of those wider social and political issues concerning human well-being in which any talk of educationally improving people (often against their wishes) is invariably implicated. In the next chapter, we shall further consider this question in relation to one of the most vexed of past and present educational controversies. cit., pp. Williams, B., Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, London: Fontana Press/ Collins, 1985. We can hardly deny that secular humanists do disagree with, say, Catholics, (some) progressives with (some) traditionalists, on the ultimate ends of human life, as well as in their interpretations of such aspects of human development as individual self-determination. 1319. Clearly, in this connection, one good reason for adopting the more generous or permissive use of the term theory 88 EDUCATIONAL THEORY AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE (against which I have been arguing) in relation to any and every educational perspective, is to resist certain political and other philistine approaches to thinking about education which might seek to construe good practice as a matter of uncontroversial common sense which hardly requires us to bother teachers unduly with high-flown ideas. EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS & PROFESSIONAL WRONGS 155 Generally, then, in so far as there is no such thing as arguing utilitarianly in abstraction from some set of evaluative priorities apart, that is, from some larger vision of human good or flourishing it is hard to construe deterrence as an unqualified good in itself. But again, even if we could show (what I suspect to be the case) that corporal punishment is not an especially effective means of maintaining order, that it can sometimes cause even more disruption and disorder than it serves to correct, it would not be unintelligible either for someone to argue for the retention of such retribution, so that justice (construed reciprocally) might be seen to be done. However, it may be neither irresponsible nor irrational of a parent to reject the verdict of an educational professional on what a child needs by way of knowledge or discipline, in favour of an alternative considered view of human flourishing. Thus, just as a gifted comedian is one who can precisely adjust delivery and subject matter to the mood of the audience, so a good teacher is one who is able to perceive what is pedagogically or interpersonally salient in a specific educational circumstance. From the fact that tomatoes have features x, y and z which make them good for eating, I cannot infer that I ought to eat such tomatoes because, inter alia, I might not like tomatoes or might, for another purpose entirely, wish to have tomatoes with properties a, b and c.7 So, although there may be legitimate inference from descriptive premises concerning features of natural objects and actual goals and interests of human agents regarding those objects to conclusions about the value of those objects for agents, there cannot be similarly straightforward inference from descriptive and evaluative premises to prescriptive conclusions. Thus, it has been held by many post-emotivist, moral non-cognitivists, that although there may be genuine reason in the realm of moral judgement, it is not a form of reason which holds out much hope of evidence-based adjudication in the event of moral disagreement. Photo by Naveed Ahmed on Unsplash ABSTRACT India has had a solid standard for medical ethics since the birth of Ayurvedic holistic science over 5000 years ago. Moreover, despite some room for professional disagreement about the proper processes of medicine and law, there would also seem to be reasonably objective criteria for determining the extent to which these aims are being met: if the health of patients deteriorates or they die, or innocent people are gaoled on false evidence, while the guilty are set free, there is something clearly awry in the states of medicine and law. 52 EDUCATION, TEACHING AND PROFESSIONALISM Moreover, even at a less uncompromising level, one which is less inclined to dismiss the general social value of schooling, or a distinct occupational class of teachers tout court, one encounters similar accretions of educational criticisms of the bureaucratic professionalism. This sort of view seems central to the highly influential work of John Elliott; see, for example, Elliott, J., Educational theory, practical philosophy and action research, British Journal of Educational Studies, 35, 1987, pp. Music considered by some to be the summit of artistic achievement because of its rationally architectonic nature is liable to be less highly regarded by others because it is too clinical and insufficiently emotionally charged. Hence, it is perhaps worth devoting some space to a brief sketch of what the education profession urgently seems to lackand what so far no one has gone very far towards providingan adequate philosophical psychology of teaching. Strike, K.A. (PDF) Teaching, Professionalism and Ethics Home Education Educational Assessment Professionalism Teaching, Professionalism and Ethics January 2008 Authors: Robin Small University of. For, of course, questions about what is to be done in particular circumstances are logically dependent upon more basic reflections, in the light of our general knowledge and experience of the world, about what it is to live well or otherwise as individual or social human agentsand practical deliberation is required for the discernment as well as the expression of human values. But, of course, since values are not just judgements to the effect that something is thus and so, but expressions of attitude or commitment towards whatever is judged to be so, they are liable to vary in the scope of their application. Meaning the Surplus, Butterfly & Bird Coloring Book for Animals Lovers, Childhood Experiences of Domestic Violence, Milagross Reading Log: My First 200 Books (Gatst). For this idea, see Neill, A.S., Summerhill, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968. It might here be objected that people have often valued life, liberty and the absence of pain for themselves at the cost of the murder, enslavement and torture of others. cit., 1988; Phillips, op. From this viewpoint, recent rationalisation of professional preparation according to competence models of training, and standardisation of educational provision through centrally imposed curricula, have been widely regarded as conducing to the de-professionalisation of teachers, whose opportunities for individual and creative initiative and endeavour seem increasingly curtailed. In the cold light of day, however, it has never seemed particularly plausible to regard even experimental psychology or learning theory in any of its modern formsas providing a scientific-theoretical basis for a kind of technology of pedagogy. An extended view of educational professionalism, on the other hand, aspires precisely to regard teaching alongside such traditional professions as medicine and law. It makes all the difference whether a given educational practicea progressive or radical education which allows children unbridled freedom, or a traditional one which imposes rigid disciplinerepresents acceptable parental choice of upbringing within tolerable, liberal limits of freedom of lifestyle, or whether such an approach constitutes a distortion of the proper course of human development which it behoves educationalists to try with all available professional expertise, irrespective of parental choice, to correct. Learning cannot both be and not be culturally determined, it seems foolhardy to claim that it is not, therefore we can hardly deny that it is so determined. 34 EDUCATION, TEACHING AND PROFESSIONALISM This point takes us into some fairly familiar territory of recent moral and social theory. All the same, for metaphysical reasons, Kant is unable to abandon the idea that there are noumena or things in themselves which cannot be known in themselvesthat is, other than through our experiences of them: these are after all the things to which we refer whenever our statements about the world are true. Hence, in this chapter, we shall attempt to sketch a rough-and-ready account of what it might mean for an occupation to qualify for the status of professionan account which, moreover, emphasises the centrality of ethical or moral concerns and considerations. Annually, more than one million children attend public school pre-k programs overseen by elementary school principals who, although veteran educational leaders, were not trained to oversee these programs. It is one thing to have descried what professionals should generally avoid in the way of actual harms to their clients, but another to discern the general form and direction of any benefits they aspire to bestow upon their clients in the course of legitimate professional endeavour. Dim prospects for resolving the dualism However, what should be clear from the nature of this educational controversy is: first, that it concerns different evaluative conceptions of human nature, civil society and of the role of education in reconciling natural with social needs and interests; second, that the debate seems to be defined by contradictorily opposed points of view. 850-X-9-.01 Standards of Professional Conduct & Ethics. 8 See, for example, Carter, R., The Doctor Business, New York: Doubleday, 1958. 18 In my view an attempted reply to this point by David Bridges (in Bridges, D., Competence-based education and training: progress or 248 NOTES 19 20 21 22 villainy?, Journal of the Philosophy of Education, 30, 1996, pp. Recent years have seen a growing emphasis on ethics education in different professions, such as medicine and teaching. Indeed, charismatically attractive styles of teaching which leave audiences spellbound have clear corruptive potential, and educationalists will often come across students and teachers whose seductive personal style or character is an impediment rather than an aid to effective and purposeful teaching. After discussing the moral implications of professionalism, Carr explores the relationship of education theory to teaching practice and the impact of this relationship on professional expertise. 3. It is not so much, as we have conceded, that management is not part of the wider role of headteachers or parish priests, more that any managerial duties which such ministers may be required to undertake are secondary to and derivative of their primary non-managerial responsibility for the moral and/or spiritual growth and well-being of those under their stewardship: in short, the primary duty of headteachers or parish priests is to forge communities conducive to moral and spiritual growth. After discussing the moral implications of professionalism, Carr explores the relationship of education theory to teaching practice and the impact of this relationship on professional expertise. By and large, however, it would seem that the prevailing professional consensus on balancefocused since the late 1970s and 1980s on the idea of a professional degreeturns upon a particular ideal of effective teaching as applied theory. 82 EDUCATIONAL THEORY AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE The moral character of professional deliberation Moreover, although the professional status of teachers has often been belittledespecially in comparison with doctors and lawyers I think it would be hard to doubt that teaching is a prime example of the sort of activity in which almost all the important decisions which need to be made at a practical level are more of a moral than a technical nature. If, on the other hand, I was privy to evidence that such licence encouraged dissolute or slovenly attitudes or habits, I might well want to avoid any educational initiation with such adverse consequences. Indeed, radicals and Marxists claimed from the outset that curricula of forms of knowledge were little more than expressions or instruments of class oppression and domination; in particular, they deplored that traditionalist exaltation of the academic over the practical and vocational which all too often seemed to be a hallmark of such curricula. Moreover, the idea of retributive justicethe notion that punishment, whether or not it deters or reforms, is actually demanded by justiceis deeply ingrained in Judaeo-Christian thought, where it finds diverse expression in the Mosaic notion of an eye for an eye, in the concept of original sin and in the idea of (the) atonement. Woodheads comment came at a moment when the British Parliament was in the process of considering legislation which would make it a criminal offence for teachers to have sexual relationships with sixteen- and seventeenyear-old pupils. Pages 283 This discussion explores professionalism and ethics attached to the field of engineering, with specific reface to mechanical engineering. The ethical dimensions of professional engagement How, then, do we begin to put all of this to work in distinguishing the idea of profession from other occupations and professional from other occupational concerns? For example, we may need help to assess moral priorities in circumstances of value-conflict; to know whether bearing witness should here take precedence over keeping a confidence, or honesty should come before hurting another persons feelings Morality, reason and relativism Nevertheless, it is by no means unproblematic to construe moral understanding exclusively in terms of reflection upon the received values of a given social or cultural contextupon, as it were, how to express the virtues and values into which we have already been effectively socialisedgiven the common assumption that human communities differ markedly in their conceptions of what is of moral value or priority. This point has, of course, been widely acknowledged by contemporary educational philosophers, as attested by the enormous recent interest in Aristotles account of intelligent or reflective conduct as praxis informed by phronesis.1 Thus, in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle first distinguished practical deliberation from theoretical deliberation as primarily concerned with pursuit of the good more than pursuit of the truth;2 whereas in physics or geography we are mainly concerned with understanding or explaining how the world is, in politics, arts or crafts we are concerned rather with bringing about certain changes in the world in the light of our desires and interestschanges which we will regard, under some description or other, as good. Indeed, as I have noted elsewhere,12 there would appear to have been in the context of many professional degreesa recent gradual erosion of such disciplines as philosophy, history and sociology of education in favour of newer and more instrumentally conceived courses in management, pedagogy, curriculum studies, and so on. Just as convicts on death row argue that they now no longer wish to live in the knowledge of what they did to their victims, so teachers in schools will point out that many pupils in schools are themselves inclined to request physical punishment for any breaches of school discipline. 309 10. It encompasses all other values that guide the public service such as loyalty, neutrality, transparency, diligence, punctuality, effectiveness, impartiality, and other Hence, to hold that all have a right to health is not to embrace the absurdity that all should receive the same medical treatmentfor any sane medical treatment will obviously be tailored to each according to his or her personal needs. For if, in the medical example, every 120 PROFESSIONAL VALUES AND ETHICAL OBJECTIVITY child needs freedom from illness and disease, what could there be of a comparable order in the educational case that every child needs? Nor should one underestimate the sheer righteous pleasure of justly humbling those of whom one might fairly say that they had it coming. ), Education, Knowledge and Truth: Beyond the PostModern Impasse, London: Routledge, 1998a. Again, whereas a good professional is one who is scrupulous in observing and meeting what he or she takes to be the exact needs of patientsgiving, as it were, full value for moneythe automobile or snake oil salesman of the year might just be the one who manages to sell the shoddiest goods for the highest profit to the largest number of gullible customers (although a good salesman is for purely commercial reasons also likely to want to avoid a reputation for this). Thus, if a positive school ethos is crucial to good schooling, and ethos is a function of good community, then the best personal attitudes and values of teachers as members of school community are not just instrumental to, but constitutive of, schoolings purposes. Thus, medical funds which could be deployed in improving the water supply or other basic aspects of health and hygiene in slums or undeveloped rural areasinvestment which might save many thousands of livesmay be diverted for the development of well-equipped clinics or laboratories in expensive hospitals, for the study of rare medical conditions of relatively uncommon incidence, but internationally high research profile. As he put it: thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.11 However, what might count as experience for the basis of moral understanding? He reasons that if he is to avoid splintering the wood he should not plane against the grainand concludes, correctly, that he should not plane against the grain. ii PROFESSIONAL ETHICS Editor: Ruth Chadwick Centre for Professional Ethics, University of Central Lancashire Professionalism is a subject of interest to academics, the general public and would-be professional groups. 200 Part V PARTICULAR ISSUES 202 12 ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER Towards the particular case Thus far we have argued that teaching may be regarded as a professional enterprise, along with such traditional professions as medicine and law, to the extent that it is implicated in the promotion of ethically contestable and morally problematic goals of human flourishing. Considered as human academic communities schools and colleges ought surely to encourage the greatest possible openness to the diversity of views and values which come their way. Chapter 5: Different faces of educational theory Chapter 6: Teaching and competence ART . This may appear surprising to those who have been accustomed to regarding deterrence as a distinctly utilitarian perspective on punishment; but it is not obvious that utilitarianism is a moral position in the sense required to do substantial present work. We have argued in this work that this is perhaps the most critical question for teachers as professionals in the contemporary climate of liberal theorising about polity, morality and human flourishing, a question upon which the very possibility of conceiving teaching as a profession may well turn. 248. But as new communitarians are not slow to point out, such considerations do appear, in so far as education seems inextricably implicated in questions of culture transmission and identity formation, to raise problems for any idea of a common education. On this view, as already argued, one may be hard put to see how any moralas opposed to merely pragmatic defence might seriously be given of corporal punishment in schools. I do not, of course, deny that there are lives of happy achievement, but if such a life is one that seeks to square the often competing claims of full and flourishing relationships and public achievement, then it is at least arguable that this might be practically impossible without some diminution of the quality of the lives which it attempts to balance. Moreover, we can make sense of the idea of human rights only in so far as there are human needs and interests which cut across differences of cultural perspective or affiliation. Roughly, as also previously indicated, those who believe that the moral values and codes of different societies diverge to the point of incommensurability or mutual unintelligibility are generally known as moral relativists, whereas those who hold that moral values are not rationally-grounded (but rather, perhaps, based on personal taste or preference) are moral subjectivists. As far as rational self-determination goes, it has been argued by modern communitarians that ideas of both reason and self-determination are much more culturally specific and contested than liberal rationalist philosophies had once inclined to dream of, and it seems difficult to deny that what counts as creativity is liable to vary considerably according to ones cultural or personal aesthetic. In the event, however, the earlier enterprise proved premature and was abandoned following the completion of seven or eight draft chapters. Thus, any general answer is certainly going to be in terms of some sort of pragmatic accommodation, although more would need to be known about the particular case to determine precise policy. and Boyson, R. (eds), The Black Papers, London: Dent and Sons, 1975, pp. Indeed, it is precisely such confusion between different senses of professional competence which leads to reductive attempts to construe educational professionalism exclusively in terms of simple craft skills, and/or to devise quasi-behavioural schedules or checklists for the promotion of such skills in the course of professional training. Thus, without in the least denying objective truth, one might hold that education is less a matter of information and skill transmission, more a matter of initiation into a particular lifestyle embodying particular virtues, values and developmental norms, and that this must therefore place education beyond the reach of universal professional prescription. However, it is not that impersonal moral or managerial rules or imperatives can never have any application, more that they have most appropriate application in moral, political and occupational contexts in which individual differences of personality, background and value are not centrally implicated in the purposes of the project. x volumes (Volume 1) PDF - Download book V. Jayakumar Professional Ethics and Human Values in Engineering PDF free and without registration in DOC (Microsoft Word . First, there are the familiar casesperhaps first raised by Socrates and Platowhere one cannot simultaneously fulfil the equally compelling demands of, say, honesty and welfare. Adhere to a responsible pattern of conduct expected of them by the community. As we see from the kind of considerations which are the basis for any talk of human rights, moreover, there are clearly forms of human conduct which are connected so closely with human woetorture, enslavement, starvation, and so onthat no alternative conception of human justice which countenanced them, however sincerely held, could represent anything less than serious failure to comprehend properly the nature of human weal. ), Progress and Problems in Moral Education, Slough Berks: NFER Publishing, 1975, Section II. Hence, while there is at least a certain intelligible sense in which we might speak of someone who overcharges, cheats or sleeps with his customers as nevertheless an excellent builder or a first-rate window cleaner, there is something EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS & PROFESSIONAL WRONGS 151 more dubious about regarding sharp practising doctors or teachers who bed their sixth-form pupils as exemplars of their respective professions. 255 Booth, M. 243, 247 Bottery, M. 255 Boyson, R. 243 Bridges, D. 240, 246, 247, 251, 256 Brodie, Jean 49, 149, 250 Bruner,J. It may also be worth noting that although school discipline and order continue to be problems of paramount contemporary concern, to which it may well be that no entirely satisfactory solution has yet been found, it is very doubtful that corporal punishment ever constituted a satisfactory solution to these difficulties. 436. For example, although a surgeon may not be consciously applying a theory when he excises a tumour, he is nevertheless utilising a technique which presupposes a good deal of scientific knowledge of the human body; in short, the practical skills of a competent surgeon are by no means independent of theory since they represent the essentially technological application EDUCATIONAL THEORY MISAPPLIED? Goodlad, J., Soder, R. and Sirotnik, K., The Moral Dimensions of Teaching, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990. Thus, to begin with, there is not much doubt that teaching, especially in the early years contexts of education, is regarded alongside nursing or midwifery as a caring vocation, something which requires feminine or mothering qualities of affect more than cognition. 10 Milton, J., Paradise Lost, Book IV, line 108, in Paradise Lost and Other Poems, New York: Mentor Books, 1961. The difficulty is rather that of seeing clearly how moral and evaluative enquiry is conceptually connected to theoretical and technical considerations, in a non-technicist wayand, for obvious reasons, this primarily requires clarification of the relationship between theoretical understanding and evaluative enquiry. 220 13 ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING EDUCATION AND SCHOOLING The character implicatedness of teacher professionalism In the previous chapter we looked briefly at a range of issues concerning the role of the teacher, with particular respect to issues of the interplay of the personal/private and professional/public aspects of teachers lives. It is not, of course, that the exercise of knowing how needs, at the level of psychological description, to be preceded by an episode of knowing thatmore, at the level of logical presupposition, that the skills of surgery themselves make little rational sense apart from a background understanding of scientific knowledge concerning the human body. Thus, to take a possible educational example, whatever past policy-makers may have thought, it would not follow from evidence that some children are (innately) more intelligent than others that one should devote a larger share of available educational resources to the more intelligentfor we might have cause on the basis of such evidence to argue in any of at least three ways: that more should be given to those who have; that more should go to those who havent; that we have no warrant, on the basis of such considerations, to advantage one more than another. 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