V
irginia
C
apitol
C
onnections
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ummer
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all
2013
10
Consideration of Ethics in
the Preparation of Teachers
By Phil Wishon
Imagine that it is the fall of 1927 and
that you are a student in a Biology class
at the Pennsylvania College for Women
(now Chatham College). Imagine also that
your lab partner is a young woman named
Rachel Carson, just starting her junior
year, a dedicated student eager to discuss
with you her developing intellectual
interests: marine life and the oceans. What
are the chances that your exchanges with
Rachel would be engaging in a way that
would sustain her interest in science—an
interest that would eventually lead her to publish
Silent Spring
, her
landmark book about the vulnerability of the natural environment?
Jump ahead thirty years to the fall of 1957, and imagine that
its the beginning of your senior year in high school. Let’s make it
September 25 to be exact—and imagine yourself mingling among
hundreds of other members of the student body outside of your
school, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas as nine black
students attempted for a second time to begin classes, escorted this
time by troops from the 101st Airborne. What are the odds that
you would have joined with a number of other students who had
welcoming sentiments for the “Little Rock nine” or with the many
students (and adults) who chose to express only hate?
As William Faulkner noted, History
is
not
was
, History is.
While we don’t get to choose our moment in time, we do get to
choose whether, in the time given to us, we will speak out, take
action, and inform unfolding events, or whether we will remain
silent by-standers to history. We are attached to this time and to the
places that stretch before us, but how many of us will ever
bond
with our moment in history…claim it and act upon it with more
seriously and humane intention?
In business and industry, in the trades and professions, in
public service—in all human affairs—questions about ethics and
character challenge us. Millions of American families continue to
be burdened by poverty and its attendant social ills: crime, addictive
behavior, and mental illness. In too many of our communities there
are too many incidences of violence and disregard for the rights
and property of others.
The gap between the haves and the have-nots in our country is
wider than ever, and its consequences are mirrored in our schools
by declines in student interest, behavior, and performance. They are
also mirrored in our neighborhoods and workplaces by inequality
of opportunity, by disparate levels of income, and by inequitable
access to gainful employment across gender, race, and culture.
Understandably, these disparities result in widespread individual
and collective malaise and discontent as they continue unabated.
In addition to helping future teachers learn to improve the
intellectual capacities of their students, faculty members in
Virginia’s educator preparation programs are also committed to
engaging them in informed, thoughtful conversations about what
type of communities they most desire and about the way they
(and their students) ought to conduct their lives. We embrace the
challenge of trying to raise not just the intellectual quotient of our
candidates and the students they teach, but also the ethical, just,
and moral quotient of professional practice and personal choice.
Investment in character development and ethical reasoning
serves Virginia’s and our nation’s economic agenda as well as their
interest in social justice. Our responsibility as teacher educators
goes beyond merely transmitting whatever values happen to be in
vogue in society but to question those assertions and—drawing
upon the best that humankind has imagined—contemplate
possibilities that promise to enrich the lives of all. To this end, we
choose to engage our teacher education candidates in meaningfully
exploring: How can we reach out in more consequential ways
At Alpha,
it’s not about pats on the back.
It’s about watching each other’s back.
At Alpha Natural Resources, we call it “
Running Right
.” It means watching
out for each other and speaking openly about safety issues. When you have
each other’s back, the rest is simple.
We power the world through the energy of our people.
See
Consideration of Ethics
, continued on page 15
