Ethical Issues
In South Dakota a high school teachers have resigned after having sex with 16 and
17 year old students. The teachers have not gotten in trouble because the age of
consent is 16 in the state of South Dakota. It has been said that these things should
be kept secret from the public because it is not a federal issue. They have a fear of
the students being victimized by other students if the stories got out. The teacher
and 16-year-old student constantly shared emails on school time. The teacher was
given the option to be fired or resign. She decided to quit. She had no comment on
the situation. It was South Dakota law that this issue could be told to the public.
Once passed to the secretary of education it is a public issue. The next story is about
a middle school coach who had sex with a 17-year-old student in his home 3 times.
He felt as if his inappropriate gestures should have been kept private if he chose to
keep them that way.
There are so many things wrong with both of these situations ethically. An
educational professional should not engage in sexual activity with a student. Even if
it is legal it is highly unprofessional and unethical. They went wrong by even
thinking about a physical relationship with a student. It is morally wrong in my
opinion. I feel no empathy for the teacher or the coach. They knew what they were
doing was wrong. Even though they thought they might never get caught they knew
that it was wrong. It is stated in the code of ethics that educators should not commit
any sexual act with a student or solicit such from them (Ethics). It is also stated that
educators should not solicit, encourage or consummate a verbal, electronic or
physical relationship with a student. (Ethics). Both professionals broke these ethical
codes and it disgusts me that these people would break these codes to be with
students.
Ethical Standards
The ethical standards for my field I believe are not hard to follow. They are
all within reason. The only one I see violated often is the personal relationship
teacher form with their students sometimes. I have had many teachers share
personal stories with me but it relates to what we are discussing in class. I believe it
is ok for teachers to share personal stories if they are connected to the lesson the
teacher is teaching. The other standards though are important to follow directly. It is
never fair to give students unfair advantages when it comes to testing and it is not in
any way shape or form ok to have a physical or sexual relationship with a student.
You should be more respectable than that. These standards mean to me giving
every student an equal opportunity to learn and get an education. The ethical
decisions I will make as an educator will impact so many people, so these standards
are very important to me.
Ethical Challenges
I think as I talked about a little before the hard thing to do is not forming a
personal relationship with a student. I know of many teachers that share personal
stories with their classes in relation to what is being lectured. This happens often in
seminar classes when things are really interactively being discussed. Another that is
hard to comply with is purchasing things to benefit the instructor. The things
teachers request should be for the best interest of the student. Yet teachers often
require things just to make things easier on them. That is one that I see violated
often. It is hard to judge though when it is for the benefit of the student or the
teacher.
What I want to learn more about
I would like to learn more about everything honestly. The code of ethics is
pretty straightforward. I would like to see these in perspective and in real life
situations. I think that would help me learn more. The main thing I would like to
learn more about is remunerative conduct. That to me seems like it is violated the
most often. It is hard to determine what that section is trying to get across. If I could
learn more about that then I would get a better idea of what is acceptable for
educators to do. Those are the things that I would really like to learn more about
before I enter the field of education.