What Kind of Values does Today’s Teachers Must Have? Part 6

The final part of “trustworthiness is loyalty!  Webster says “it is feeling strong support for someone or something! ”   With leadership groups, we are to be a team working together at the same goals!  It is the same for our schools and our children!  We want to make it our best to have our children ready for society!  Loyalty is about promoting and protecting the interests of certain people, children, organizations or affiliations.  We see this with — husband-wife, employer-employee, citizen-country – which should create an expectation of loyalty.  It is important that we:

• Prioritize Loyalties.  We have a loyal school with a director, teacher and teacher aids that work together and because of this, there are many parents and groups that believe in our school and the loyalty claims and sometimes it is often impossible to honor all of them at the same time.  Consequently, we must rank our loyalty obligations in some rational fashion.  In our personal lives, for example, it’s perfectly reasonable, and ethical, to look out for the interests of our children, parents and spouses even if we have to subordinate our obligations to other children, neighbors, or co-workers in doing so.
• Safeguarding Confidential Information.  Loyalty requires us to keep secrets or information learned in confidence.  That certainly is a hard thing for us to do.  It is like signing the document at the doctor’s office that guarantees the information on that paper not to be shared with others.  I remember 2 teachers at a school sharing their thoughts about a problem-child but however they conversed in front of that child.  We must be careful how we do things.
• Avoiding Conflicting Interests.  We have that additional responsibility to make all professional decisions on merit not personal interests.  I know I had my favorites working with children but we are responsible for all the children in the classrooms.  We need for the children and parents to trust us. 

So we see that “trustworthiness” concerns a variety of behavioral qualities — honesty, integrity, reliability and loyalty.

We will continue next time with the second “Core Ethical Value” which is respect!

I  wonder how you’ve been doing with your ethical dilemmas?  Here is one on Greta:

Greta, a 20-year-old, mildly developmentally disabled female client recently has aged out of the state system.  Sam, your employee and Greta’s social worker of 4-years, is considering allowing Greta to rent a spare bedroom in his home.  Sam currently has an additional 27-year old male renter who will continue to stay in the home after Greta moves in.

Greta’s foster parents would like her to continue to live with them; however, Greta has expressed a desire to live on her own.

Sam has come to you to discuss the situation.  He feels there is nothing wrong with renting Stella the room and he has made comments that suggest that he is willing to help her with some of the difficulties she will face living on her own for the first time (e.g., grocery shopping, banking, budgeting, etc.)

Question:  But what is the right decision?