Ethics in Education

To begin, I wanted to say that I had a fabulous week with my students and I hope you have enjoyed your week as well! Anything fun?

In class this week my students focused on identifying 3D shapes such as rectangular prisms, cones, cubes, and cylinders! I think they love these shapes way more than 2D shapes… or maybe it’s because they got to build them with marshmallows and toothpicks instead of popsicle sticks!! Although they couldn’t eat the marshmallows, this did not stop them from completely enjoying the whole experience (messy free) and having so much fun becoming little architects! To finish up math, on Thursday, they took a post assessment over 2D and 3D shapes and then had a math exemplar where the students got to demonstrate how many ways they could create a hexagon using different types of pattern blocks such as triangles, hexagons, and rhombuses. I could tell the kids thought this was going to be a challenge but as one boy said, “Wow! This is a lot easier than I thought!” It is so great seeing the lightbulbs light up in their heads when facing challenges!

Furthermore, we had a unique experience in social studies because the children got to bring in their favorite t-shirt so Mrs. Zawisza could look at where the t-shirts are from in the tag! The class had the most t-shirts from China, but there were many from different countries all over the world. I loved seeing the different shirts the students chose to bring in, and I could tell they really fit their unique personalities! These different countries will be used to start a research project over the next few weeks learning about the different languages, foods, clothing, homes, and transportation!

Next, I want to briefly go over a very important topic in education which is ethics!

The definition-

Ethics: “Moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior.”

Synonyms: morals, values, rights and wrongs, principles, ideals, standards (of behavior), value system, virtues, dictates of conscience

To be a teacher having good personal morals as well as being able to follow professional codes of conduct (or ethics) are vital to being a good person and a safe teacher. Without ethics, many lines can be crossed between students and teachers that should never be stepped over! Thankfully, I have a fantastic mentor that knows what is appropriate! Here are some examples of ethical behavior that I’ve seen from my mentor:

• Hugging students from the side

• Asking a student about a scratch they had and where/how they got it

• Informing a student that praying as a class is not allowed because this is a public and not private school

• Calls parents and writes letters home to accurately report their child’s doings

• Contacts office of wrong student behavior

• Being aware of her student’s behavior and if they are acting more different than usual

• Staying professional on the class twitter page (not picturing faces of her students or anything inappropriate)

All of these are examples of good ethics because Mrs. Zawisza is staying professional with her students, maintaining her own professional behavior, providing a safe environment, accurately reporting, and being cognizant of her student’s behavior and signs of child abuse.

With technology becoming more and more popular in classrooms it is very important that teachers use their social media appropriately, which Mrs. Zawisza exhibits very well with her own class twitter. Actually, my video of the week relates very closely with this! My own tip for social media for teens my age are simple: do not post something you wouldn’t want your mom, dad, boss or grandparents to see. If you don’t want them to see it then it is probably not appropriate and something you wouldn’t want a future job or college to see too. Be responsible and realize how you present yourself to the world.