Week 28

In this weeks blog I will be discussing a situation that occured in my practice that required using a reflective model from Rolfe, Freshwater & Jasper (2001) .

What

Last year I had a student who was using his school gmail account to communicate with his mother about what was going on in the class, what he was learning about and general interaction.  Although this wasn’t what the school email was designed for I let this slide as the purpose of the email was not being abused. I had taken into account his personal situation where he was a child of divorce and was in shared custody so at times needed to touch base with mum because he missed her. However, it soon emerged that this parent was asking about other students, how they were doing, instructing him on how to do his work. In some instances he complained to his mother that he was being told off and how it wasn’t his fault..  The mother then forwarded the emails to my principal to make a complaint about how I was being unfair to her son. Minero (2017) talks about digital technology/communication is giving parents a deeper look into their children’s performance and experience in the classroom, unfortunately this is an example of how as teachers we can be maligned by a parent if they have an agenda.

So What

I had put myself in a compromising position as I knew he was using his email to communicate with his mother during the day. While the Practising Teacher Criteria and Code of Ethics Criteria 3 Professional Relationships (Education Council, n.d.) require me to engage in strengthening relationships with family and whanau I don’t believe this was the method or format to do so. I understand that as educators we make moral decisions all the time but in this case I took a ‘grey zone’ Kakabadse (2003, cited in Ehrich, Kimber, Millwater, & Cranston, 2011) because in the first instance it did not appear to be. If I used Ehrich et al.’s (2011) decision-making model it would outline the critical incidents for a dilemma and isolate some of the competing forces. Our school had an established ethical framework for school email addresses that I did not follow and within an institutional context the school had an established culture, practices and and expectations of how school email addresses were to be used. And of course there is  a wider global context of how schools and parents might view the use of emails in the classroom and the belief that the email is there as a form of communication and not as a school tool.

Now What

Enrich et al., (2011) talks about being aware of interconnecting factors that require educators to make defensiveable decisions that occur all the time. It is clear to me that in the first instance I did not balance the school’s policy of student device use well with my own personal values. That by allowing one student leeway I inadvertently encouraged a situation where conflict between institution (our school policy) and a parent ensured.  This ties in with the New Zealand teachers code of conduct (Education Council, 2017) where I am required to engage in ethical and professional relationships with learners that respect professional boundaries...by allowing the misuse of his email my professional boundaries became blurred and my position became compromised by his mother. I can see that perhaps I should have made it clear to my parents of the school’s policy and the wider implications if we as educators didn’t follow these policies. It seems to me that using an ethical dilemma model is a very useful process where values can be explored, expectations can be managed and an appropriate outcome found.

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References

Education Council. (2017). Our Code Our Standards. Retrieved from, https://educationcouncil.org.nz/sites/default/files/Our%20Code%20Our%20Standards%20web%20booklet%20FINAL.pdf

Education Council. (n.d.). Practising Teaching Criteria. Retrieved from, https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/practising-teacher-criteria-0

Ehrich, L.C., Kimber, M., Millwater, J., & Cranston, N . (2011). Ethical dilemmas: a model to understand teacher practice, Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 17:2, 173-185. DOI: 10.1080/13540602.2011.539794. Retrieved from, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1epzff2Lyvna1hnEZEIhrupEdD-no4_pW/view

Minero, E. (2017). Parent Engagement in the Digital Age. Retrieved from, https://www.edutopia.org/article/parent-engagement-digital-age

Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D. and Jasper, M. (2001). Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.