Here is a link to a blog by a public high-school teacher who is a law school graduate. It makes a lot of sense. Just click HERE
Why do many teachers permit, even support the moral hazards mentioned in Jay Braiman's article? It begins with their training and the pressures of getting a job.
Undergraduate teacher candidates are commonly unself-possessed, befuddled by pedagogical catchwords, and often all-too-ready to abandon what few ethical precepts they have for the sake of a job.
By contrast, the increasing number of mature change-of-career entrants coming into education have a sharpened critical sensitivity that often leaves them dismayed upon first exposure to the ethical and political morasses not infrequently encountered in today's schools. That there is a ethical dimension to education need hardly be argued to this experienced group. Inexperienced undergraduates, on the contrary, generally only want to talk about technique.
Undergraduate teacher candidates tend to dismiss ethical concerns. They expect that their principal or their school's policies will give them ready answers. Older change-of-career teacher candidates can hardly get enough discussion of such questions. They know that policies are one thing, but in-the-trench-decisions are quite another.
For more on this see The Ethical Miseducation of Educators
Cordially
--- EGR
