Pedagogue Blog

Sexual harassment is a serious and unfortunately commonplace issue that school districts face. As a teacher, it’s imperative that you know what falls under the category of sexual harassment and how your district handles the issue when it comes up.

According to a 2011 study by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), around 50% of U.S. students in seventh through twelfth grade experienced sexual harassment. It’s interesting to note that most cases involved student-to-student harassment, as opposed to teacher-to-student harassment. Females were in a worse position, with 56% reporting that they had faced sexual harassment; with boys, it was 40%. The nature of harassment inflicted on female students included unwanted physical attention and touching. For male students, the challenging of other boys’ sexual orientation was a common form of sexual harassment.

Deciding what falls under the label of sexual harassment and what doesn’t is very subjective, but it may be considered generally to be unwelcome behavior of a sexual nature that disrupts a person’s life. Because of the ambiguity and variety of definitions, schools’ responses differ. For example, a 6-year old boy was suspended for sexual harassment in North Carolina in 1996 for kissing a female classmate on the cheek. But there are more serious cases such as Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, in which a male fifth grader started groping a female classmate with the stated intention of sleeping with her. The school failed to take any action against him despite repeated complaints from parents.

The problem of sexual harassment in schools is persistent. Schools can act more responsibly on the issue by formulating proper and specific sexual harassment policies and providing special training programs for teachers, students, and other administrative staff. Seeking the support of parents is also beneficial. The challenges around implementing sexual harassment policies are made even more difficult because students shy away from reporting incidents, for fear of suffering additional consequences or being ridiculed.

The solution is to create a safe environment in the school so that such instances of harassments simply do not take place and the students feel secure, although this is often easier said than done.

As you can imagine, districts must be highly attuned to the law, as well as to the legal rights and responsibilities of the district. Most districts employ an attorney to ensure that they are within their legal rights as they initiate policies, procedures, and practices to guide the district’s schools.

Corporal punishment is still prevalent in school districts across the country. But the legality of corporal punishment is not clear, and the matter has been left to the states to work out. Corporal punishment was put under the spotlight in 1979 when two states initiated its banning. Today, a whopping 31 states are opposed to corporal punishment for students. From a teacher’s perspective, several aspects must be considered when faced with the potential of delivering corporal punishment. These include:

• Teachers should have complete knowledge of existing state and school district’s rules and regulations on corporal punishment.
• Teachers should have knowledge of the conditions under which corporal punishment can be directed.
• Teachers should only use corporal punishment in moderation, and only when it’s completely necessary to maintain control in the classroom or school environment.
• The punishment must be strictly driven by motives of maintaining discipline in the class or for the student’s betterment. Punishments triggered out of revenge, spite, or anger are unacceptable.
• The scale of the punishment given must be in strict appropriateness to the misbehavior.

If corporal punishment (wherever it is allowed) is considered to exceed acceptable punishment, a teacher could be liable to a lawsuit. In deciding whether the act was within the bounds of law or not, courts will look at such factors as the instruments of punishment and on the body parts on which the punishment was inflicted. Needless to say, the use of fists, switches, or canes in delivering punishment is simply unacceptable. Likewise, blows inflicted on body parts that are highly susceptible to injuries are not acceptable. Apart from that, before punishing a student in any manner, but particularly before using corporal punishment, ethical considerations must be taken into account.

All in all, in states where no definite rules on the issue exist, teachers must apply discretion and ethics in the matter of corporal punishment for students.

A teacher’s life outside the school may come under scrutiny. Aspects such as whether or not a teacher is associated with any radical political organizations or groups outside school can be grounds for denial of employment or dismissal from services. New York’s Feinberg Law was adopted in 1949 in view of the alleged communist infiltration of public schools during that time. A list of organizations that were in favor of overthrowing the U.S. government by violent means was created.

Any person who turned out to be a member of any organization on the list was deemed unfit to take any office in the school system. The law helped the court reach several verdicts in later years, even though the Feinberg Law was eventually ruled to be largely unconstitutional. A membership with any organization did not mean that the individual partook in the goals of the organization. At the same time, however, the court maintained that the school boards still had every right to screen employees and dismiss them if their personal views supported the overthrow of the U.S. government.

On the whole, U.S. laws seem to be quite ambiguous about whether or not a teacher’s private life can be a basis for his or her dismissal from school. The general trend has been against the teacher’s interests, and teachers’ private lives have met with disapproval from the courts. Court verdicts have, at times, upheld teachers’ rights, however. An Ohio court ruled that a teacher could not be dismissed for using offensive language in a confidential letter to one of the students. Likewise, in another case, the court observed that it was unethical to dismiss a teacher from on charges of indulging in a homosexual relationship with a fellow teacher. The explanation provided was that unless a teacher’s actions hindered his or her ability to teach, any disciplinary action could not be taken against the teacher.

The bottom line is that unless a teacher’s private life interferes with his or her professional conduct as a teacher, it should not be of concern to school authorities, the court, or society in general. But decision regarding these issues is very subjective, and clear-cut definitions of what is “interfering” and what is not “interfering” do not really exist. The only way to reach a consensus is by way of an agreement between the teacher’s organization and the school district about what is acceptable and what is not.

The legalities involved with employment account for some of the most fundamental legal issues. Because teachers are not self-employed, and are employees of a particular organization or board or group of trustees, they must be clear about their employment contract well in advance, to avoid uncertainties and legal hassles. Issues include the following: At what point is a teacher actually hired? When is the teacher made permanent after being employed on a probationary basis? And what implications does the tenure of the contract have for the teacher? The employment contract should address these points in an unambiguous manner, and new teachers should be encouraged to take the time to review their contract in detail after they receive it and before signing it.

As employees, teachers must be aware of the details of their contract, be able to abide by the clauses mentioned in it, and therefore live up to the employer’s expectations. Failure to be aware of these issues could result in termination of employment In the United States; it’s unlawful for a teacher to be terminated without just cause. A school district can establish just cause for termination only if it appropriately informed the teacher of his or her deficiencies before termination, created and implemented a plan to fix them, and gave the teacher several opportunities to deal with the issues.

Next, the district must provide documentation of the teacher’s continued infractions or deficiencies. If the issue was related to instructional performance, the district must provide evidence of incompetence or actions that placed students at risk. It’s not enough to say that the teacher was a weak instructor or disciplinarian. If the teacher failed to follow policy, the district must provide evidence that the teacher actually broke the policy in question. It’s not enough to merely state that the teacher is late at least 2 days a week. Authorities must have documented proof that the teacher is indeed late at least 2 days a week.

Finally, the district must present evidence and documentation showing that it followed due process and provided just cause for the teacher’s termination. Also, the district must provide evidence that it follows the same process for all teachers and that it would have taken the same steps with any other employee with the same experience, history, and employment level who engaged in the same infraction or exhibited the same deficiencies. At this point, just cause has been established, and the district can terminate the teacher in question.

So what’s this about due process?

Due process in education means that fairness should be rendered in all areas, and that a teacher’s or student’s rights as individuals should under no circumstances be violated. Due process is important because most court decisions regarding teachers, education, and ethical teaching pertain to the fundamental issue of fairness. All protections and rights pertaining to due process actually emerge from two amendments to the U.S. Constitution:

1. The Fifth Amendment, which states that “no person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

2. The Fourteenth Amendment, which asserts that “the equal protection of the law” should not be denied to any individual and “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

Typically, due process that is appropriated in the judging of the fairness of an action can be classified under two broad headings:

1. Substantive due process rights, which deals with the issue per se.

2. Procedural due process rights, which delves into the fairness of the process used in delivering 
justice.

For instance, if a teacher was dismissed from his or her duties for treating a child in a particular manner that the child’s parents were not pleased about, an issue of substantive due process is raised. The court’s decision will be based on whether or not the teacher’s actions fell within the lawful bounds of ethical teaching.

Procedural due process, on the other hand, would involve the circumstances and the manner in which the case was handled. Issues such as whether or not the teacher received a fair chance to present his or her side of the story in defense and whether he or she was given an opportunity to question the evidence come into play here. Procedural due process is a broad term, and its meaning changes from state to state, depending on the region-specific laws and regulations. To understand this concept, let’s take a look at the court verdict in Goldberg v. Kelly, which included the following account of the minimum procedural safeguards demanded by basic due process:

• The provision of an opportunity to be heard, and the date and time for this opportunity should be provided to the concerned individual well ahead of time.
• A full, detailed account of the reasons for the proposed suspension must be furnished well in advance.
• The opportunity for the accused employee to defend him or herself and to question the evidence provided against him or her should be provided.
• He or she must, under no circumstances, be deprived of the opportunity to retain an attorney.
• The individual must receive the opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses present.
• It’s compulsory that the decision reached must strictly rest on legal rules and laws and on the 
evidence presented at the hearing.
• The decision-making body must be impartial and unbiased.

The underlying idea behind practicing and attaching appropriate importance to procedural due process is to ensure that individual students, as well as teachers, are not unnecessarily burdened with arbitrary actions against them by any institution or individual.

In today’s increasingly litigious society, teachers need to know that they are liable for injuries and mishaps that happen to the students under their care. Teachers may be sued for misfeasance, malfeasance, and nonfeasance, and it is important that they know the difference between the three.

1. Malfeasance

This occurs when a teacher hurts or causes bodily harm to a student on purpose. For example, if a student is being disrespectful to you and you strike that student, you’d better get yourself a good lawyer: you’ll probably be sued, be arrested, and lose your job. Remember, you’re in a position of power, and children are vulnerable. Society has no pity or tolerance for people who injure children.

2. Misfeasance

This happens when a teacher neglects to provide information or guidance that could have prevented bodily injury to a student. For example, a science teacher fails to teach students proper safety measures and guidelines for an experiment, and a student subsequently spills chemicals on his or her skin, resulting in a second-degree burn. To protect against misfeasance, teachers must provide explicit, clear instructions that students understand. The safety of students in the classroom ultimately falls to the teacher.

3. Nonfeasance

This occurs when a teacher does not adequately perform his or her supervisory duties, and as a result a student is hurt. For example, a teacher leaves the classroom to drop something off at the office, and two students engage in a fight in the interim. The teacher is guilty of nonfeasance because it’s the teacher’s duty to never leave students unsupervised under any circumstances.

Check your daily teaching routine. Are you at risk for potentially committing one of these three all-too-common acts? You may be able to slide by sometimes, but it’s both poor ethics and legally risky to count on always doing so. You want to be the best teacher you can be – and that means being prepared to take responsibility for all of your actions, no matter what. Make sure your teaching behavior is one that you would be proud to stand up and defend.

As a teacher, you carry the weight of several types of responsibility. You are responsible for your students’ welfare, safety, education, and health. You are responsible in a moral sense – and in a legal one. Because of that legal responsibility, you also face a lot of liability.

In Sheehan v. St. Peter’s Catholic School, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled regarding the liability of teachers in America. Liability can be defined as something that someone is responsible for. The case involved an eighth-grade student who had suffered an accidental eye injury during an athletic field trip organized by the school. Even though the primary culprits were clearly other boys in the class who, in the teacher’s absence, began throwing stones at the girls present, the student alleged that it was the school’s responsibility. There was a monetary judgment against the school.

The criteria for a teacher’s liability for student injuries are more clearly stated in Teachers and the Law, written by Fischer, Schimmel, & Stellman. According to these experts, accidents that fall within a teacher’s liability include those occurring under the following conditions:

The teachers’ failure to protect the student from injury causes the injury.

Negligent behavior on the teacher’s part.

The teacher’s carelessness in appropriating due care to ensure student’s safety.

The student’s persistent attestable injuries.

A discussion of the issue of teachers’ liability for student injuries is very important because cases of teachers being sued for monetary damages are common. Consequently, teachers should have some form of professional liability insurance to safeguard themselves against such situations. The coverage for such insurance is generally provided by teachers’ unions. Make sure to check with your union about what coverage you have.

As an educator, it’s important that you know the legal aspects of your job through and through – especially if you work at a public school. You need to know the legal strictures governing your behavior as a teacher – and you need to know what legal standing you have recourse to as a professional.

State-specific laws and regulations address the basic requirements for the certification and employment of teachers. Certification is a tool to ensure that a teacher has the preparation to be competent in the profession. Teaching certificates are issued for specific time periods, such as a 5-year or a 10-year term, and limit a teacher to teaching specific subjects and ages. Most states require ongoing professional development to upgrade skills and knowledge and maintain competencies. Failure to do so could result in ineligibility for certificate renewal and consequent job loss.

The requirements for teacher certification are standardized for all applicants and are tested in the courts before their implementation, so the procedure is fair and just. Nonetheless, the law does not intervene in the specific requirements for teaching certification by individual states and intervenes only in instances of violation of human personal rights. A good example of such a violation is the case of United States v. State of South Carolina, in which the court defended the use of National Teacher Examinations as a certification requirement and in determining salaries, even though the test was proven to be biased against minorities. Likewise, in Bay v. State Board of Education, the court took a stern stand and ruled that any applicant convicted of burglary in the past could be lawfully refused a teaching certificate.

In the case of State v. Project Principal, Inc., the Supreme Court of Texas ruled that gainfully employed teachers with permanent certification were required to pass a teacher’s examination to prove their competence for continuing their employed status. In this instance, the court supported the state’s right to replace or nullify existing conditions for renewal of certification and to set up new conditions. Likewise, the verdict of Kelly v. Bonney et al. ruled that permanent certificates held by teachers could be replaced with certificates of a 5-year duration that could be renewed only if the teacher successfully completed additional training.

Every state has an established set of rules and laws for cases involving questions about revoking or extending a teaching certificate. These rules and laws contain clear descriptions of reasons, situations, or actions that could amount to suspension of certification. Reasons for certification suspension are quite varied, ranging from poor moral conduct or being physically or mentally unfit for teaching, to having a criminal conviction. The revocation of one’s teaching certification and loss of employment are not synonymous. While the former certainly leads to the latter, the latter does not necessarily have to result in the former. But teaching certificates are suspended nearly 100% of the time after a teacher’s dismissal and the subsequent request for certification revocation by the school district’s board.

You teaching certification is the crux of your job. Make sure you understand the legal precedent you need to uphold in order to keep that licensing – and, thus, your ability to find a job.

Once upon a time in America’s schools, librarians, teachers, and the curriculum coordinator decided which books would be used in classrooms and school libraries. Things have changed. Parents and other interest groups are now seeking to have a say in what students are taught and what materials are used to instruct them. This is not something to be feared, because it is a sure sign that parents and the community are becoming more involved with the education of their youth. As a consequence, you will have to deal with censorship issues from time to time, but “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Here are several things you can do to prevent censorship issues from arising in your classroom:

1. Choose your books carefully. Make sure they align with the curriculum that is in place. Also, make sure you can justify their use by explaining why they are necessary and how they will boost student achievement.

2. If a book has caused concern and controversy in the past, save yourself a lot of headache and find an alternative text. Why pick a fight when there is a better way to approach the issue?

3. Be open to and prepared to answer any questions concerning censorship that you may receive, no matter how trivial and absurd they may seem. Make sure that you have introduced yourself to all of your parents and informed them that they can call you with any questions they may have. This can lessen complications, because instead of calling the administration with concerns, they will call you. This way you can dispel any misconceptions without involving the higher-ups.

4. Make sure you talk about the controversial issues from books with your students. Discuss how sections that may seem inappropriate were necessary for the author to get their point across.

5. Always follow your district’s policy on censorship. It’s one thing to take a stand for something that you believe in, but quite another to rebel against the administration and lose your job.

Censorship is a touchy subject in American schools. Various groups have their own views on the matter, but at the end of the day, it’s a necessary evil. The best way to deal with issues of censorship is to prevent them from happening in the first place. With the tips outlined here, you’ll be able to recognize possible issues before they arise and save yourself plenty of grief.

It’s inescapable that at some point in their careers, every teacher is faced with ethical and moral issues that require sound judgment. In fact, it would almost be impossible to find a teaching professional who has never grappled with such dilemmas. While developing your skills in good decision making, you’ll need to keep in mind the six elements comprising the code of ethics—knowledge, empathy, reasoning, appreciation for moral considerations, courage, and interpersonal skills. Internalizing these will ultimately lead to appropriate actions. Nonetheless, such cases hardly exhaust the ethical responsibilities of a teacher. The bigger picture has an even more serious and important area to deal with—the everyday ethics of teaching:

1. Keeping Up With Ethics Essentials

While the responsibility for providing children with a strong ethical grounding falls largely on parents, educational institutions also have a big role to play in shaping the moral character of young people. Children acquire knowledge about what’s right and wrong in classrooms where they spend most of their growing years. They can receive many lessons of wisdom in life in school. Experiences from the classroom during the formative years provide children with attributes they apply lifelong in their behaviors and actions. Teachers’ examples leave strong impressions on children, and teachers often serve as role models for their students. Children’s classroom experiences don’t necessarily have to be strong or severe to leave lasting impressions. A teacher’s rude comments to a particular student could trigger responses in students that they’ll keep for their entire lives. Teachers must be aware that they send strong ethical messages to their students by their choices and decisions.

2. Setting a Personal Example

Teachers can, by way of what they do and say, influence students to emulate them. They provide guidance not only through direct lecture, but also by modeling moral behavior. A teacher who encourages children to deal with interpersonal problems, but who confronts students by shouting and making threats, is not modeling the appropriate behavior.

3. Establishing Ethical Dialogue in Classrooms

Establishing an ethical dialogue in the classroom whenever a situation arises is an excellent way to instill moral values in students. Discussing core values such as honesty, truthfulness, and respectability helps students understand good ethical behavior, as well as how to differentiate good from bad. By giving examples from everyday life, and from historical and literary figures, teachers can help students reflect on core values from multiple perspectives. Ethical lessons taught to students often remain with them throughout their lives. It’s also valuable for students to watch their teachers reflecting and updating their own personal code of ethics, because this will provide them with guidelines on how to conduct this process themselves in the future.

4. Creating a Congenial Classroom Environment

The classroom environment also has ethical dimensions. Teachers who create classroom environments with the expectation that students will interact with each other in an open, just, and honest manner set the tone for an ethically inviting learning space.

Ethics are not just for the big, extraordinary scenarios. Ethics are for everyday, commonplace issues, too. Keep in mind the four daily ethical practices we described here, and your moral compass will be primed and ready when the hard hitters come your way.

Are individual codes of ethics inborn in humans? Many researchers believe that humans are socialized to possess a vague sense of the moral legitimacy of various issues and situations. The degree of stringency that an individual attaches to these is a result of what he or she has experienced through interaction with others, as well as spiritual and religious wisdom, reasoning ability, and secular guides during the course of life. The process of creating a personal code of ethics involves reflecting on and reviewing these interactions to ensure your framework is flexible enough to function in any new situations you may encounter.

Ethical guidance can be derived from many sources. It can reach you subconsciously through adages heard by chance, or even a bumper sticker you see while driving. Humans learn by imitation, finding role models who provide either direct or indirect guidance when dealing with ethical dilemmas. Direct guidance involves asking a role model for advice in a given situation, whereas indirect guidance involves considering what your role model has done or would do in the same situation, based on what you know about your role model. This model-selection process is observable in children when they begin to imitate their parents, sometimes even wearing their clothes or imitating the way they talk on the phone. Likewise, in adulthood, when one is faced with questions like, “What should I do?” or, “Am I approaching the problem in the correct manner?” it’s natural to reframe the question into, “What would my role model have done?” This happens largely on a subconscious level, but nonetheless plays a part in an individual’s final decision making.

Parents also play a part in a more intentional way, by ensuring that they choose the most morally sound educational tools (e.g., specific schools, teachers, or books) for their children so that their children establish ethical values from “good” examples. Historical or literary figures may provide particularly interesting and useful role models from whom to obtain indirect guidance. These role models may also be derived from religion. For example, some Christians wear WWJD bands to remind them to ask, “What Would Jesus Do?” in a moral or ethical situation. Buddhists find ethical guidance by considering what the Buddha would have done, deriving their insights from teachings passed down through generations, as well as through frequent consultation with teachers, known as the Sangha. The great holy books of religion, such as the Koran, the Torah, and the Bible, may offer various examples of how to cope with ethical dilemmas.

Factors that affect the development of your code of ethics don’t work in isolation. Instead, they work in close proximity to each other and collectively shape the final outcome in the form of problem solving. In the case of ethical codes, it’s from these factors that you’ll eventually select the attributes that go into making your final decision. These internal processes usually happen so rapidly as to appear automatic. When teachers see something happening that their code of ethics doesn’t allow, they probably don’t have to think twice—their inherent code of ethics immediately guides them to make the appropriate decision. This process is so spontaneous that there’s no room for second thoughts about the decision before putting it into practice. For example, if a teacher sees an older girl taunting a younger girl for her looks, the teacher will probably not stop to ponder the situation before stepping in and separating the two. This is especially true if a pattern of behavior has already been established.

It is an absolute must for every educator to develop reflexive behavior that corresponds to their theoretical code of ethics. The difference between having acted rightly or wrongly may come down to the knee-jerk reaction of a single half-second. Make sure your ability to measure up isn’t in question should it all come down to the wire.

While pretty much everyone agrees that it’s important to live according to what’s right and to avoid acting in a way that’s wrong, not everyone always agrees on the what’s right or what’s wrong in any given situation. A code of ethics is personal and different for each individual. It determines an individual’s response to a particular situation and also accounts for the varied responses exhibited by different individuals in the same situation.

An individual code of ethics comes into play in everyday situations that teachers experience, such as when an influential parent asks for special favors for his child, while dealing with an impudent student or an impertinent remark, while dealing with colleagues, or at any point while performing the daily duties of the job. All actions and responses are a function of a personal code of ethics, which is the foundation for differences in teachers’ styles of dealing with students and school-related situations. A well-defined code of ethics will help you negotiate difficult times during the life of your career. It allows you to decipher the right thing to do based on your current perspective and to take responsibility for and stand by your decisions.

Another ideal to be realized in the process of abiding by your code of ethics is to make quick and prudent decisions. Teachers should not delay ethically correct decisions for long periods of time before putting them into practice. If your code of ethics is strong, you should be able to make decisions on the spot and have the conviction to bear the consequences. Too much pondering or hesitation takes the impact out of even the soundest ethical decisions.

Ultimately, the way you respond to what you believe is right and wrong provides insight into your code of ethics. And that’s why a personal code of ethics is not a stringent, formulated code. You can approximate and set guidelines for yourself based on what you think is right and depend on these guidelines to solve dilemmas and complex educational situations. Individual codes of ethics are not formal codes laid out by organizations and institutions to be obligatorily adhered to by their members. They are intangible moral guidelines that individuals appropriate on their own.

Ethics are no walk in the park. While many scenarios are black-and-white, easily solved with clear-cut answers, not every circumstance that a teacher comes across is so simply resolved. As a teacher, you may come across decisions that impact an individual’s entire life, from family to future. You need to be prepared to deal with that.

Regardless of the severity of the dilemma, however, every teacher will need to take action based on a code of ethics. A code of ethics is a personal set of guidelines that you’ll use to determine the right course of action in a given situation. Although the teaching profession has no formally adopted code of ethics, any code of ethics should comprise six basic elements:

1. Knowledge

Possessing adequate and appropriate knowledge is crucial in solving ethical issues. Having adequate knowledge of both the situation in question and what is expected of them helps teachers visualize multiple approaches to ethical dilemmas. After assessing the pros and cons of the consequences of possible actions, a teacher can then make a decision about how best to approach the situation.

2. Empathy

Empathy refers to the ability to appreciate a situation from the point of view of the various participants involved. It enables decision-making that aims to provide the greatest unbiased benefit to all parties. Empathy opens up multiple pathways for reaching a decision that includes perceptions and views of all involved.

3. Reasoning

The ability to logically and coherently analyze situations and perspectives represents an important element of the code of ethics associated with the teaching profession. It’s important for teachers to be able to reflect on a situation or circumstance while taking all aspects into consideration and maintaining moral principles as a gauge for deliberation.

4. Appreciation for Moral Considerations

The ability to identify and analyze conflicting and competing moral interests involved in any given situation is very important when faced with ethical dilemmas. Everyone’s rights should be protected, and no one should be deprived of what they deserve. The most important trait in dealing with moral considerations is the ability to adhere to the truth.

5. Courage

The ideals of ethical teaching, such as appreciation for moral considerations, reasoning, and empathy, are much more difficult to reach if the element of courage is missing. Courage is required to create ethical outcomes appropriate for all parties involved, and it can take the form of willpower, tact, or even street-smartness, depending on the situation. Courage comes more naturally to some people than others. As a teacher, you will be required to display courage in a number of situations, sometimes on a daily basis. It will always help to know that you have the school regulations, or possibly even the law, on your side, but there are very few cases in which you can be completely sure without actually having the courage to bring the issue up with a relevant third party. Keeping your students’ best interests at heart will help to guide you in the right direction.

6. Interpersonal Skills

Even teachers with all of the preceding attributes could still be prevented from acting ethically if they lack the requisite communication skills to make their position known. Even if your understanding of right and wrong is clear and just, and is accompanied by all the qualities of being an ethical teacher, the potential for positive outcomes in your ethical dilemmas is diminished if you lack interpersonal skills. In ethically tinged situations, teachers must know how to formulate their words tactfully and how to use the right expressions and put them forth in frank manner, so they appear neither too harsh nor too feeble.

As a teacher, you’ll find yourself with ethical decisions to make every day. These might involve complex issues like reporting child abuse or censorship. Even if the issues you encounter aren’t so weighty, it’s still just as important to be able to make the right decision even when it may not seem to “really matter.” Center your internal compass on these six values, and your ability to act according to a code of ethics should true, no matter how choppy the moral waters.