CF+Ethical

Teacher as Ethical Professional  **Teachers are morally and legally responsible to //create and secure each student’s greatest good by encouraging the development of individual knowledge and understanding //** (Banner & Cannon, 1997, pp. 35-36). An ethical professional recognizes his/her‍ **competencies** ‍and those of his/her students in order to establish a **respectful and collaborative** environment that invites and **honors** multiple viewpoints, is student-centered, and __honors?__ truth, honesty, fairness, and compassion. When teachers care, they want to do their very best for those in their care. Teachers help students recognize their strengths, improve upon their weaknesses and develop the skills and knowledge necessary to make positive contributions, regardless of their career path (Noddings, 1995). The University’s undergraduate curriculum addresses ethics in a prominent way. The required course of study includes 15 credit hours of philosophy and theology. The capstone core course, Ethics (Moral Philosophy or Moral Theology), fosters moral reflection and reasoning through virtue ethics. In the Ethics classes, students reflect on excellences of character, known as “virtue ethics,” by examining their inner lives based upon some of the cardinal virtues of the classical and Catholic traditions: prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. They also focus on contemporary moral issues. Teacher candidates, as students in Ethics, are asked to investigate moral issues in education and to write a research paper on one of them. Teacher candidates in our unit are held to high moral and ethical standards and are expected to carry out ethical professional practices. The unit has adopted the National Education Association (NEA) Code of Ethics of the Education Profession (1975). Early in our programs students are apprised of copyright law and fair use restrictions as well as provisions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act [(FERPA), 1974] and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [(IDEA), 1975]. In the internship or practicum, candidates demonstrate integrity through their actions and interactions. They demonstrate respect for diverse learners and colleagues as well as school policy and procedure.

 ‍Thomas Aquinas said that every action that a person knowingly performs is a moral act and shapes the individual (Keenan, 1998). the expansion of meaning (the enrichment of the individual’s appreciation of his or her circumstances within human culture and the world at large (Field, 2005)  ‍