Homework5

 

Assignment 1: Professional Ethics Presentation

One of your most important ethical responsibilities as a classroom teacher is your role as a mandatory reporter of child abuse and neglect. This is a side to your future work as a teacher that you may hope you will never experience. Yet it requires that you be fully prepared and fully understand what is expected of you.

In Week 2, you worked with an interactive timeline to place key events and education theorists in the history of U.S. education. Your purpose in using the timeline was to both demonstrate your knowledge and to gain experience with an effective teaching and learning tool. Your Assignment this week has a similar purpose. A PowerPoint document can be another effective classroom tool. It is a technology application that students can use for project presentations or other work products. It is one that you can use in sharing information with students, parents, or school colleagues.

For this Assignment, you will prepare a PowerPoint presentation that addresses key areas of professional ethics. As you create your presentation, imagine you are preparing it for the next group of BSEE students who will take this course. Make your goal to create a PowerPoint presentation that has the quality and comprehensiveness to be a course resource.

To prepare:

• Review the book excerpt “Once Upon a Time” from the Week 5 Learning Resources. Keep in mind the narrator is a teacher describing her own experience with a former student and how she responded. Consider the details in the story that might signal signs of child abuse or neglect.
• Access the “Professional Ethics Presentation” template and the Code of Ethics for Minnesota Teachers, available in the Week 5 Learning Resources
• Review all resources for this week.
• Review the six areas of professional ethics included in the template:

  Ethical Behavior
  Mandatory Reporting
  Confidentiality
  Academic Integrity
  Digital Ethics
  Professional Dispositions

• Review the final slide on Rachel. Consider the decisions the teacher made and offer recommendations based on what you learned this week.
  Note that you have up to two slides for each topic. You are required to fill at least one slide for each area and may use both slides.
• Review Week 5 Learning Resources for information on each focus area of professional ethics.
• Review the guidelines for creating an effective PowerPoint presentation.
• Consider key information to include in your PowerPoint presentation.

To complete this Assignment:

• Using the “Professional Ethics Presentation” template, summarize key information every educator should know to guide professional behavior and fulfill legal obligations.
• For each focus area, list up to five bullets with information.
• In the Notes section of the PowerPoint slides, write the script that you would use to explain each set of points.
• Cite all Learning Resources in APA style.

Assignment 5 is a PowerPoint document of 6 to 12 completed slides, plus the cover slide.

2 A DAY IN THE LIFE

Once Upon a Time …

The kids in our classroom are infinitely more
significant than the subject matter we ‘re teach­
ing them.

Meladee McCarty

Some parents just don’t want to hear any bad news
about their children. Mr. Reardon* seemed to be one of
them. Though I needed his help, I wasn’t getting any­
where with him. I’d spent my entire lunch period trying to
convince him that his ten-year-old daughter was in seri­
ous emotional pain. I didn’t succeed; talking to him was
like talking to a prosecutor.

After twelve years of teaching, I considered myself a
“pro.” W hy was I doubting myself now, wondering if this
father’s accusations were true? Were Rachel’s* problems
my fault? Were my expectations unrealistic for this child
described by her father as “supersensitive”? Was I putting
more pressure on her than past teachers had? I honestly
didn’t think so.

*Names have been changed to ensure privacy.

A DAY IN THE LIFE 3

Slender, blue-eyed Rachel was among my most capable
students when the school year began. She grasped ideas
quickly, managed math problems and social-studies
reports with ease, and had a passion for creative writing.
Though a bit shy, she was quick to laugh and chat with me
and her classmates.

Midyear, however, I began to see disturbing changes.
Rachel seemed distracted much of the time and found
even the simplest tasks frustrating. Some days she ·
couldn’t put her name and date on a paper without tears
or spurts of anger. She’d fold her arms across her chest,
pinch her lips together and sit motionless for an hour or
more. Except when I asked her to write a story, she rarely
finished a single assignment by the end of the school day.

But what prompted me to make the call home was her
antisocial behavior. At recess, she stood off by herself
while class:rr-ates played Frisbee or kickball. In the cafe­
teria, she sat in the custodian’s corner, often with no lunch
or money to buy it. Even in the classroom, when I encour­
aged students to choose partners for informal projects,
Rachel remained alone, staring out the window or sketch­
ing fantasy landscapes in her notebook.

Why had Rachel’s father reacted so negatively to my
call? Why wasn’t he worried about the changes in his
daughter’s behavior? Obviously, Rachel was troubled
about something. What about her mother? Would she
have seen things differently had she answered the phone?
Maybe a new baby was on the way. Or a relocation. I was
sure Rachel’s anxiety was home-related, but home was
off-limits to me. Her father had made that very clear. I
should concern myself only with Rachel’s school environ­
ment, he’d said.

One morning, a few days after the phone call, Rachel
came to school in a soiled, crumpled dress. Her hair was
dirty and uncombed; her eyes were little more than slits in

4 A DAY IN THE LIFE

her pale face. She dropped into her chair, put a book on
her desk as a pillow and fell asleep in minutes.

Three hours later, my class went to lunch, and I gently
roused her, determined to find out what was going on.

me,” she said in almost a reverent whisper.
“Used to?” I knew I was in forbidden territory, but it

was the first time in months Rachel had mentioned her
mother.

She twisted her belt with one hand and tried to cover a
quivering chin with the other. -“Mom can’t do anything
now. She’s … she’s … ”

“Away? Or sick, perhaps?” I probed.
“Yes. I mean, no!” she began to sob. “I can’t tell you. I

want to. But Dad made me promise never to tell anyone at
school. I can’t break my promise, can I?” Her eyes begged
me to say “yes.”

Forcing myself to stay calm, I handed Rachel a tissue

“Sometimes I stay awake at night so I don’t ‘have bad
dreams,” she said softly, rubbing her eyes.

‘Want some fruit salad?” I asked, opening my lunch bag.
She looked away. “My mother used to make that for

and began spooning fruit onto a paper plate. I wondered
how I could help lift her awful burdens of anxiety and
isolation.

I leaned forward, facing Rachel squarely and, as I often
did to start students writing, began a sentence, “Once

‘
IIupon a promise ….

Instantly, Rachel’s back straightened. She shot me a
knowing look. “Once upon a promise . .. ” she repeated,
scrambling for her pencil.

Less than half an hour later, I held Rachel’s creative­
writing “assignment ” in my hands.

Once upon a promise, in the Kingdom of Misery, a young
princess lived alone with her father-the-king. Although their

A DAY IN THE LIFE 5

palace was beautiful and they had many riches, the king and
princess were sad. This is because they missed (very very
much) the queen who could not live with them. You see, she
was terribly sick and the court doctor had put her in the hos:..

pital for a royal rest. But the queen’s sickness ·was in her
mind. Rest did not make her any. better.

One day the doctor let her return to the palace for a visit.
He thought she would feel better if she saw.her daughter and
husband. But this only made a royal mess because when the
queen was home she swallowed too many pills (on purpose)
and almost died!!!

The queen went back to the hospital (of course), and the
king was sadder than ever. He was so sad that he stopped
caring about the princess who was now SCARED OF
EVERYTHING (even of going to the dungeons if she told
anyone about her mother’s sickness).

Mostly the princess was scared because she knew she
would never live happily ever after. THE END!!!

Rachel’s story didn’t astonish me. But I was amazed at
how easily she had unburdened herself now that she
knew she could. Of course, I needed to verify the “facts,”
but I was sure I’d found the key to some very real dun­
geons in Rachel’s world. Her mother’s mental illness and
suicide attempt were serious enough threats to Rachel’s
security and peace of mind. But her father’s inability to
support her emotionally and his insistence that she keep
all the pain to herself were even more devastating.

Reluctantly, Rachel’s father agreed to a private meeting
with me and the school psychologist. When I handed him
the lined yellow paper filled with his child’s handwriting,
he stiffened. As he read his daughter’s story, he nodded
with tears in his eyes.

He didn’t have to insist anymore that their home situa­
tion wasn’t affecting Rachel’s behavior at school. And he

6 A DAY IN THE LIFE

didn’t have to blame me, or anyone, for her academic and
social problems. He was finally seeing his daughter’s
problems for what they really were: cries for help.

Rachel’s mother remained hospitalized, with little hope
for recovery. But her father now recognized that Rachel
shouldn’t have to cope with that reality on her own.

I couldn’t help wondering: If Rachel had written a fairy
tale just after that, how might she have begun? Perhaps
with “Once upon a promise, in the Kingdom of Hope … ”

Joan Cozzi Campbell