5c - Reader 5 Professional Ethics

In education, many schools are continuously promoting and discussing their 'ethos'.  Reader 5 describes an ethos as 'how we do things around here', the way that a collective; be that a family, business or other organisation, decide to go about 'being' and interacting to reflect a positive and good image.  A school's ethos is very important as it is something that will be delivered to the parents of prospective students in a hope that their child is then sent to that school.  A few of the schools that I have worked in have an ethos which focuses on developing the individual.  Projecting this kind of ethos will encourage the parents of prospective students and they will then be assured that their child will not just be a number and will be able to develop as a individual with the attention focused solely on them.  However, it isn't uncommon to see a school with an ethos focusing on the development of the community and working as a community.  Here the parents of the prospective students will see that the school is working beyond its parameters and looking for the development of the child within the society that they are part of.  The most important part of an ethos is that it needs to be positive.  As an ethos is a message, delivering an idea of 'how we do things around here', that ethos needs to speak to everyone and tell them what they want to hear.

Ethics maintained and displayed by the staff working within the community need to meet and work to the main points of the ethos.  This ensures that all staff are working positively and working together, pushing the community forward in the same direction.  Without an overarching ethos for staff to work to the community's aims and ideas could be diminished and lose a focus.  Equally, without ethics promoted by the staff within the community, an ethos will be lost and not maintained or delivered.  Workplace ethics work best with an ethos and a professional ethos will struggle work without ethics.  

Within the professional world, personal ethics can sometimes be changed or altered to ensure professionalism is maintained.  This is quite a bizarre statement to make, especially from an teacher's perspective, but I will explain my statement further through the use of a case study.  The second case study presented in Reader 5 informed me about Kevin Carter, a documentary photographer who won awards for his photograph of a impoverished girl crawling towards water.  

The girl went on to die due to not getting to the water, though Carter could have intervened and helped the girl, which could have resulted in her not dying.  In this position, Carter was upholding the professional photographer's ethical role, which is to observe and not intervene.  This case study does however raise the question, at what point should professional ethics be dropped and personal ethics take over?  After debating this question with colleagues, peers and my friendship group I have come to the personal conclusion that ethics can never be dropped, as if they are able to be dropped then they are not ethics.  Ethics could be considered as rules to live, work or interact by.  If there is a point at which these rules should be broken, then the rules are not solid and lack in the most important quality of an ethic, positivity.  Ethics are for the good of the greater community.  I have taken the figure below from Reader 5 to help demonstrate this point.  As you can see, there is a ripple effect that streams from the personal into the further three areas, a personal action will result in a professional reaction, which will then cause reactions from the following two stages.  The initial personal action with result in the next three reactions and depending on the initial action, the reactions could be either positive or negative.

The idea of the ripple effect links with the idea acknowledged in Reader 5 as the consequentialism approach.  This approach basis the success of an action depending on whether the consequences (or reactions) are positive or negative.  The the consequence is positive then the approach would say that the initial action was also positive.  Within this section the Reader talks about how lying can be considered as a positive actions due to producing a positive consequence.  In her blog, Iona Holland suggested an interesting situation, where a singer may not achieve a performing job and is given the reason that they are too short, rather than the truth which would be that they cannot sing.  Consequentialism would suggest that this lie was a positive action as it would leave the singer wanting to try again as they may be the right height for the next job, however, personally and professionally, I would not be comfortable with this action and would argue that the consequence is not the most positive none possible.  The consequence here would result in the individual not being hurt and feeling confident in their ability ready to walk into another audition.  This is not a positive consequence as the individual may walk into the next audition and receive the truth rather than a lie, resulting in a crash from a higher point which takes into account the lengthened audition process the individual has committed to.  

Within my profession, initially I found find a point in which it is part of my professionalism to lie or bend the truth, however, after reflecting I have considered the following to partially fit into the consequentialism approach.  If I am meeting with a struggling parent who is finding it hard, even if this is clear, I would not fully admit to the fact that I can see this is the truth, instead I would use the positive/negative/positive sandwich.  This is where you, as the professional, would offer praise and congratulate something positive before offering the negative and then end on a positive that can be a way to move on from the negative aspect.  Whilst this i not lying in the same terms as cited from Iona's blog post, it is still not being completely truthful and I do question if I am not being completely truthful am I completely maintaining the community's ethos?  

My inquiry focuses on the place/point/validity of Drama within non-maintream educational establishments, working with students that have been removed from or cannot attend mainstream schools.  From reading Reader 5 and reflecting on both my inquiry topic and my professional practice I understand that ethics within professional practice are an extremely confusing topic.  What is ethical on a personal level may be unethical at a professional level, like in the example above regarding documentary photographer Kevin Carter.  With regards to my inquiry I need to ensure that whilst I am currently working from a personal level, I do not effect the professionalism of myself or my colleagues. At no point can my personal level of inquiry diminish my professionalism.  I will continue to ask questions, reflect and find the answers in the same way that I have done up until now but ensure I am careful with the materials I am sharing and the thoughts that I am displaying and, in some cases, promoting.

                                                                                                    

With a final thought back to Kevin Carter, I'm afraid to say that my personal opinion is that his actions were wrong.  Whilst it is his professional code as a photographer to observe and not intervene, I also think it is part of the code within that profession to preserve.  In this case to preserve would have been to help preserve the life of the little girl, which ultimately, would have preserved his own too.  This is a topic that I am really forward to debating with my Module 2 SIG.