Most often than not a teacher’s role requires making tough professional decisions in a complex matrix of ethics, society, culture and professional environments dictates.  Whilst taking action in this inquiry, I decided to use Ehrich, L.C. et al, (2011) model for ethical dilemmas to discuss and reflect on my chosen incident.

The critical incident, which triggered the ethical dilemma

The promotion of the use of technology and online applications is inherent with potential privacy breaches. Anything put on the internet can never be completely erased and in view of this we have to be extra careful on what digital documents we create.

Whilst doing the I am awesome slide exercise, some students decided to mention names of teachers and other students, when they had to state for example things they disliked.  “What turns you off in the classroom” ..and they were mentioning teacher’s names.

Competing forces with bias and their potential impacts on decision-making

Professional ethics:  Teacher’s responsibility to make sure every student under our care is protected and safe. Also to note is the issue of confidentiality as a lot of information is been gathered about the students.

Organisational culture:   School policy protects the rights of all students and guide students not to accidentally make public well-guarded secrets of sensitive nature. The school rules stipulate that if a teacher identifies any concerns the teacher will have to forward it to the head of house.

The individual’s values, beliefs, and ethical orientations

I felt that the students were right to be honest and the students felt they had to be very honest and call a spade a spade. But this might go a long way to hurt the student or teacher to teacher professional relationships and if they really had issues they had to discuss with their counsellor or deans not the subject teacher.

The choice of action taken

I had to use a lot of professional judgement here and had to explain to them they had to make complaints at a place where their complaints could be addressed. I also advised them not to share  materials which are too sensitive

Implications for the individual, organisation and the community

My action of directing them to take some details off their slides made it hard for them to understand why because to them that is the truth. So some felt the teacher did not really want the truth.