"The personal values that drive their attitudes towards ethical issues may be more resistant to change."
Throughout the course, I've asked myself, "what is the purpose of teaching social studies?" And I still remain positive that it's to produce civic minded, active, worldly citizens. By extension of this, what would be the purpose of teaching ethics? I don't think we could come to a unified decision on this. By using extreme examples such as sweat shops and organ donations, it seems we don't require students to think more personally about value systems and ethics, and to use less extreme examples would probably cause an uproar. For instance, what if we started by looking at factory workers, or the access of healthcare, in America? Just thinking aloud.
I'm not entirely surprised by the outcome of the study done in the article, and it's clear the point of the curriculum/article was for students to change their thinking on ethical issues, or at least consider other points of view. So what would make this more successful, for students to consider thinking beyond their immediate value systems?
While school is an important tool for socialization, it seems efforts to teach students about ethics would be best combined within topic areas such as history, politics, economics, etc., to help remove their sense of self from the equation. Meaning that maybe they'd be better challenged thinking about the ethics of presidential decisions, etc., rather than their own. And using sweat shops as the illustration of the divergence of rational self interest and greed seems, albeit relevant, a too severe example for students to relate too. It feels inauthentic.
I'm not sure where I stand on teaching ethics, because I think it can be kind of a slippery slope. Who am I to tell students what is and isn't ethical? A great example of this is the subprime mortgage crisis referenced in the beginning of the reading... who really is to blame, is there an ethical concensus on it?
[editors note: I have opinions on ethics and ethical decisions, and what should be taught to students in terms of what constitutes ethical behavior. I just think it would come off as political]
I don’t see teaching ethics as advancing a simple right/wrong dichotomy. The answer of an ethical dilemma will be more convoluted and complicated than the question, and at the end of the conversation the teacher should be just as unsure as the students. This is what I want- in my classroom at least. We’re not telling the students anything- we simply present the evidence and the rest is up to them. We can fall back on our trusty education psychology terms: disequilibrium- the first step to learning.
ReplyDeleteHow does one cover ethical or moral considerations in a high school classroom- while maintaining employment? Yes, this is a slippery slope. We desire self-preservation as much as we want our students to think. As social studies teachers, acknowledging the ambiguities in ethical dilemmas is the least we can do. Otherwise we’d be professors of religion or philosophy.
I agree, though as a response to the article, it seemed like the authors/analysts were hoping to ignite some sort of value change (see quote), and that the point of teaching ethics was to come to some sort of conclusion as to what is "ethical." Especially by using such extreme examples.
ReplyDeleteAlso, given the examples cited at the beginning of the article re: economics-related ethics issues (subprime mortgages, etc), it still seems to me that the point of ethics education put forth by this article is to teach a fairly specific ethics curriculum.
Thanks!