4.2: Ethical Responsibilities to Responsibilities to Colleagues

Let’s Take a Deeper Look

It is important for educators to model kind, caring, respectful behaviors with other staff members and employees. Children carefully watch how the adults interact with each other and the mood of the classroom is directly affected by our attitudes, either positive or negative. The new concept of mirror neurons is interesting. These are neurons (brain cells) that fire both when a person does an action, and also when a person observes an action. “Picking up on vibes” was once thought to be a silly notion; however, there is controversial, but interesting research that investigates this. How we treat people, has a big impact on the classroom attitudes and environment.

3. Ethical Responsibilities to Colleagues and Employers

A caring, cooperative workplace respects human dignity, promotes professional satisfaction, and supports and sustains positive relationships. Based upon our core values, our primary responsibilities to colleagues, including staff and volunteers, and employers are to establish and maintain inclusive environments and respectful relationships that support meaningful work as well as each individual’s physical and mental well-being.

A- RESPONSIBILITIES TO COLLEAGUES

We shall:

Code 3A.1- Recognize and honor the perspectives, strengths, and contributions of our colleagues to the program.

A “strengths-based approach” works well with children, but also a strengths-based approach works well with adults. When used with adults, it is often called “appreciative inquiry,” which is a recent approach to change the focus of supervision and employee management. This approach omits the focus on a person’s weaknesses or negative traits and instead focuses on a person’s positive attributes (Nolan, 2007). It is a radically affirmative approach, intended to change judgmental methods of supervision and management. It completely disregards the problem-based focus on production, or the lack of accomplishment or achievement, and instead leads with a person strengths. Appreciative inquiry involves the cooperative search for what is best in people, their organizations, and the world around them. It is both “…the art and science of asking questions to strengthen a system's capacity to improve positive potential... intervention gives way to imagination and innovation, instead of negativism, criticism, and circular thinking” (Nolan, pp. 83-84). When allowed to practice our strengths, we tend to enjoy what we are doing, and thus we are more likely to excel at our tasks.

Code 3A.2- Honor confidentiality related to job performance, and respect a right to privacy regarding personal and personnel issues.

Confidentiality Defined (WestEd, n.d., p. II-53)

Confidentiality means keeping privacy or confidence. It involves respecting the privacy of information and keeping secrete information that is not meant for public disclosure. This often entails an obligation to protect sensitive or private information from unauthorized disclosure, ensuring it is only shared with individuals who have the right to access it. Keeping information under confidence implies:

• A faith or belief that one will act in a right, proper or effective way

• There is a relationship of trust or intimacy

• There is a reliance on another’s discretion

• There is both an ethical obligation and a legal obligation

Confidentiality Policy Guidelines (WestEd, n.d., p. II-55)

When reinforcing confidential information practices, teach all employees confidentiality policies, especially new employees.

• Have a confidentiality policy

• Discuss the policy at the top and end of every staff meeting.

• Revisit the policy regularly.

• Create a signed agreement of confidentiality for all employees.

• Keep all confidential information in a locked file cabinet (Don’t leave files on the desk).

• Files stay in the office and don’t go home.

Code 3A.3- Exercise care by acknowledging and addressing personal biases in expressing views regarding personal attributes or professional conduct.

As discussed earlier, we all have biases, but we can learn “cultural competency,” which is the ability to be aware of cultural sensitivity, know how to avoid being culturally repressive, and put this knowledge into practice. We can practice culturally responsive behavior, which acknowledges differences with respect, and where there is a desire to gain understanding. We can maintain cultural understanding and be culturally relevant, which means our educational routines, teaching strategies, and curriculum match (or relate to) the families’ home culture. This is the foundation of high-quality early education. We do not want to be culturally repressive, which is behavior that shows no recognition of the validity of a different belief or practice, and where there is no desire to discuss the difference.