Activity 4: Legal and
ethical contexts in my digital practice
For this post, I will use Rolfe’s Reflective
Cycle of ‘What? So what? Now what? ( as can be seen in the diagram, it neatly encapsulates Gibbs' version which
I have used previously) to critique a situation
that is based on a real life incident.
What was the ethical dilemma?
A Year 7 female
student took photos of a sexual
nature of herself on her phone and then sent these to her Year 7 boyfriend. He
shared the sext with his friend who shared them with other students at school.
The female student complained to school staff and her parents who threatened to
take their daughter from the school if the boys were not suspended. One of the
Year 7 boys involved has issues with truancy.
So what should we do - all things considered?
An analysis using Hall’s (2001) model of ethical decision making:
The Stakeholders: School (Staff/Board/Principal),
Parents, Students, Police (In this case although the original sharing of the
sext was consensual, the sharing with others was not and this would constitute
an offence).
The Priority
stakeholders: The students as they are the most vulnerable. Under the Code of
Professional Responsibility 2017, teachers have a commitment to learners to
protect them from harm. The age of the students involved (11) is relevant as it
is unlikely that they were unaware of the full impact of their actions.
What restrictions are
there to your actions?:
Harmful Digital
Communications Act: Students are 11 years old, too young to be prosecuted.
Restorative model - We are a restorative school so punitive
action such as suspension as desired by the parents is not the first action. In
this situation, it is likely that the restorative methods may conflict
with the parents’ beliefs and bias.
The school’s ICT
policy is two sentences.
Students sign a piece of paper saying they will uphold the school’s values of
‘Respect, Responsibility and Excellence’.
Which courses of
action are possible?
- Removal
of images from digital device and report person/url to social networking
sites if involved. Ministry guidelines support this.
- Banning
of digital device use by students involved. With the co-operation of the
students’ parents, this is possible. However, as we are a 1:1 device
school, the students may be disadvantaged by an ongoing ban of devices at
school and at home.
- Suspension
- This would not be ideal for at least one of the students who has had
issues with truancy.
- Restorative
Meeting with students and parents - essential as part of the restorative
process. Helps everyone to be heard and for the instigators to understand
the effects of their behaviour. Hopefully, everyone can then move forward.
- Education
of safe and responsible social media use. Imperative!
How should this
course of action be implemented?
Guidance
Counsellor/Dean meet with students/whanau separately. Youth constable also
meets. Restorative process explained to parents and students. Arrange a time to
have a restorative meeting with all parties. Parties to agree on outcomes.
Access to digital technology limited. Digital Safety Education given to
students involved and other students by homeroom teachers and digitech
teachers. Students involved to help
create posters about cyberbullying. The well-being of students should be the
priority.
Now what?
Under
the Code of Professional Responsibility teachers should promote the well-being
of learners and protect them from harm. From the Standards, Teachers
should ‘develop a culture that is
focused on learning, and is characterised by respect, inclusion, empathy,
collaboration and safety’(2017). Thus, I need to promote the safe and
responsible use of digital technology and help students to avoid making themselves vulnerable online. I
also need to ensure students understand
what our very general ICT policy actually means.
Engaging
parents/whanau in their children’s learning will be beneficial as they will be
more aware of what their children are doing online.
References:
Connecticut’s Teachers Education and Mentoring
Program. (2012). Ethical and Professional Dilemmas for Educators: Facilitator’s
Guide: Understanding the Code of Professional Responsibility for Educators.
Connecticut, US: Author. Retrieved from https://www.ctteam.org/df/resources/Module5Manual.pdf
*Hall, A. ( 2001). What ought I to do, all
things considered? Paper presented at IIPE Conference held at the Key
Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance,
Griffith University, Nathan Campus, Brisbane, 8
April 2001
University of Waikato. Hamilton: New Zealand. Retrieved
from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gB3t_wBea_57afXbhkYBNwfSoFvBm9k_/view
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
Education Council. (2017). Our Code Our Standards.
Retrieved from: https://educationcouncil.org.nz/sites/default/files/Our%20Code%20Our%20Standards%20web%20booklet%20booklet%20FINAL.pdf
Ministry of Education.(2015). DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
Safe and responsible use in schools. Wellington:New Zealand: Author. Retrieved
from https://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/School/Managing-and-supporting-students/DigitalTechnologySafeAndResponsibleUseinSchs.pdf
Ministry of Education (2015) Bullying Prevention
and Response a guide for Schools. Wellington: New Zealand. Retrieved from:
Wow, this is a great insight into a common occurrence (unfortunately more than we would like). The way that you and your school have dealt with this situation shows how you view law and ethics in your school. I like how you took action to sort the problem as soon as you could and created opportunities for the students to create awareness of the damage that cyber bullying can do. Thanks for sharing this :)
ReplyDelete