On Ethical Dilemmas Of Teachers’ Professional Practice In The Compulsory Education Stage

Since ancient times, education has had a distinct ethical character and the virtues of teachers and the legitimacy of teaching have also been the object of attention. Since the19th century, influenced by teacher specialization movement, teachers’professional morals have been gradually replaced by teachers’professional ethics. Teachers’ professional ethics include not only the moral requirements and specifications of the virtues of teachers and the legitimacy of teaching, but also take the responsibility of guiding teachers’ethical judgments in professional practices. In addition, it is one of the important tasks for professional ethics to help teachers to make decisions and choices meeting ethical requirements in the face of challenges and difficulties of professional ethics. And the emphasis of professional ethics on ethical issues in professional practices is not only the reflection of the shift of modern philosophical life in teachers’ professional ethics, but also the direct performance of applied ethics’concerning about practical issues.What ethical dilemmas do teachers in the compulsory education stage encounter in professional practice? How do they react? How to better deal with ethical dilemmas in practice? These problems are the logical starting points and purposes of this study. To answer these questions, this study begins with the investigation and analysis of teachers’ professional practice. In professional practice, the ethical dilemmas faced by teachers mainly involve "what is the interest of students","who are responsible for","how to deal with the rules," etc. And different answers to these questions result in ethical dilemmas of teachers’concepts and ethical dilemmas among teachers, between teachers and students, and between teachers and parents. This study conducts two forms of investigations about ways in which teachers deal with ethical dilemmas. One is used when teachers face virtual ethical dilemmas, the way teachers prefer. The other is the way used by teachers in face of real ethical dilemmas, the way teachers practice. The results show that large differences exist between the way teachers prefer and the way teachers practice. This phenomenon indicates that although in many cases teachers can clearly aware of which way better meeting ethical characteristics, they lack ethical environment, ability and courage to practice. Besides, the findings show that there is a close relation between the way teachers use in dealing with professional ethical dilemmas and the contents of professional ethical dilemmas. Moreover, among the variables that influence teachers’choices of way to deal with ethical dilemmas, teachers’ gender, seniority, subjects taught, school level, region, whether to accept the ethics training and other factors on the behavior and ethics of teachers have no great effect.For ethical dilemmas faced by teachers in the professional practice and problems arising in the process of dealing with ethical dilemmas, this study analyzes deeply from two aspects of the regional factors and the specific factors. From the perspective of the historical background of teachers’professional ethics, value pluralism brought by globalization and value disorder resulting from social transformation have exacerbated the ethical dilemmas of teachers. In addition, special fields of China’s education, including curriculum reform, examination competition and intellectual system, are also important causes of ethical dilemmas of teachers in primary and secondary schools. Curriculum reform as a new concept, examination competition as an ideology and intellectual system as a statutory authority have a profound effect on the primary and secondary school teachers. From the micro level, factors, such as the conflict of values, multiplicity and individual differences of teachers’professional service objects, uncertainty and borderless nature of teachers’profession, multiplicity of the role of teachers and the lack of teachers’professional ethics, all have a direct impact on teachers’ethical dilemmas. Based on the above reasons, this study proposes countermeasures and suggestions to deal with ethical dilemmas from two aspects. First, starting from the perspective of professional development, establish and improve professional ethics relevant security system and enhance teachers’professional ethics literacy. Professional ethics security system involves three aspects, including the formation of teachers’professional ethics organizations, the reconstruction professional ethics norms based on professional standards and the establishment of professional ethic security system. The establishment and improvement of professional ethics security system can not only provides professional support for teachers to understand, react, recognize and receive professional ethical dilemmas, but also creates ethical and peer-supervised professional environment and atmosphere for teachers. To enhance teachers’professional ethics should start from strengthening teachers’knowledge and abilities of ethics. Teachers’ professional ethics literacy is the main factors of teachers’keen observation of the ethical and value elements in environment, reflection of the ethical meaning on their own behaviors and making ethical judgments. Second, this study provides teachers with specific strategies from four dimensions to deal with ethical dilemmas:ethical choices strategy, practical conversation strategy, self-renew strategy and complicated thinking strategy. These four strategies are the four ways and ideas to solve professional ethics dilemmas. They are not incompatible four strategies, but four alternative ways or ideas. It is worth mentioning that the factors that lead to teachers’ethical dilemmas include both the main factors that can be solved and the structural actors that can not be solved. For those ethical dilemmas that can not be solved, teachers need to understand and treat them in the way of complicated thinking.