February 4 Ethics and Responsibility

Kim's presentation led to a great discussion. From the first class we have identified the tension between the aims, values and beliefs of curriculum planners and those of actual teachers. Central to that tension is the fact that most of us in the class believe in a curriculum that responds reflexively to student needs and many of us believe in classroom practices that spur students to look critically at the society they are part of. Meanwhile, curricula tend to reflect a production metaphor that seeks overtly and covertly to perpetuate the status quo. So, what is a teacher to do?



One answer stems from the belief that we are responsible to our employer(s). Our school divisions, school boards and our provincial department of education hire us and offer us the more or less unfettered privilege of working with children. So it is reasonable to consider them the authority to whom we report. From this point of view, conflicts over whether or not to teach the "text" or to help students develop a critical gaze on society are easily resolved on the side of the text and the provincially mandated curricula it supports. If you have to choose between fostering radicals who criticize the system and teaching the internal "logic" of the system, the contract you signed contains the answer to your question.



There is another answer. It is a compromise. It recognizes that we work for bosses who have reasonable expectations of us - reasonable because we signed contracts that said we would - to teach a mandated curriculum. It also recognizes that this curriculum might not allow for all students to be successful or might draw us away from our student's interests or the pressing needs of a society that changes with no regard for how long the curriculum planning cycle is. The compromise solution is to find holes within the day to day order of things and allow some space for critical analysis of the world around us. Kim cited a good example of this from her teaching when she talked about changing textbook math examples to include people from marginalized groups and problems common to her students. However, she admitted that this is in the end a necessary but necessarily frustrated attempt to change the problems that plague our schools and society. In the end, we need to prepare students for the real world, the exam, the job.



I found what follows within a review of Parker Palmer's work but the quote is from him:



...the teacher who teaches "democracy" in a fear-based system without democratic choices is as divided as the investor whose believes in health but whose wealth accrues from tobacco stocks. By extension, the divided teacher's students are divided as well, perhaps unable to articulate their frustration in any way other than acting out, which in turn leads to even fewer rather than more democratic choices in the system.



I like this quote because it outlines the problem with the compromise solution. It is very hard to fix a car while you are driving it. Our system is carefully crafted to allow for spaces of acceptable dissent. However, those spaces tend to emphasize the logic of our present order. The argument is simply that we have a democracy that accepts all points of view as worthy of being voiced. Everytime a dissenting viewpoint comes forward we pat ourselves on the back for being in such an open-minded society. The problem is, the actual content of the dissenting voice is lost. When we encourage our students to question our society from within one of its largest organizations (public schooling) we will have a hard time not confusing them. So, the compromise solution compromises us.



The only solution I have found to this dilemma is to rethink to whom I owe my allegiance. I have signed a contract that says I will teach students. The degree I studied to gain qualifies me for that task. If my responsibility was to teach a certain curriculum I would be assigned to do so. However, the reality of schools in Manitoba is such that people trained to teach gym teach english, those trained to teach english teach math. We all teach outside of our supposed subject area specialty. If it is alright for our employers to break the unwritten understanding that we are supposed to teach a certain curricular area based on our ability why isn't alright for us to do the same? I teach students. They are my prime consideration. The real world we often think we are preparing them for is a shifting, changing place. I prefer to equip them with the skills they need to read that world. In some cases there will be coherency between the curriculum's aims and the needs of the students. Often there will not be. In that case, I side with the needs of my students - fully confident that it an ethical and responsible position.