Towards Excellence: Ethics, Values, & the Educator's Toolbox

As a member of Educational Excellence Committee, I had a workshop at the DKG International Convention, Tampere, Finland on 26-29.7.2023, the title of which was: What is Educational Excellence? I had decided to utilize my academic dissertation, called Exploring Ethics, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Education Sector of One Finnish City. Have you seen our committee’s red umbrella on the net as a mark of giving educational tips or the latest EEC news? In this blog I’ll present another umbrella: Ethics under which Values dwell!

And now: towards Excellence! We know about Tesla’s, Porsches, Champagne, and Michelin-stars – such excellent cars, wines, or restaurants! We need not go deeper into their qualities, but how about education? I’ll open my ethical umbrella referring to various researchers (Jyvaskyla studies in education, psychology, and social research 546). According to Hirsjarvi (1985,17) ethics belongs to practical philosophy that deals with theories of good life and correct human actions; it is about studying and clarifying issues of morals. Von Wright (2001, 23) posits that ethics is often called moral philosophy or the theory of morals. Moral questions are mostly questions of good, bad and duty; but not all good is morally relevant, and not every duty is a moral duty. According to Driver (2007, 3) ethical theory, besides guiding our actions, provides the criteria to evaluate actions – i.e., normative ethical theories give us some idea of how we ought to act. Mizzoni’s (2010, 5) formulation describes ethics as a field that looks at ethical and moral ideals that we should have and also examines people’s actual codes of conduct.

After this philosophical umbrella of Ethics, it is time to let Values step forward – not carrying too many theoretical burdens! According to Hurka (2006, 357) ’the theory of value or of the good is one of the two main branches of ethical theory, alongside the theory of the right. Whereas the theory of the right specifies which actions are right and which are wrong, the theory of value says which states of affairs are intrinsically good and which intrinsically evil.’ In exploring value, Robert Audi (2007, 36) refers to the valuable in the sense of what is good in itself – commonly called intrinsically good or intrinsically desirable. Audi goes on (p. 37): ’If something is good or desirable as a means or as an instrument to bring about something else, it is instrumentally good.’ Besides intrinsic and instrumental value, Audi (ibid pp. 37-39) brings forth another distinction: that of value and valuing. Value as a kind of worth, or what is intrinsically valuable, belongs to normative ethics and provides standards indicating what we should do. The notion of valuing is psychological, and rather describes than prescribes: ’If we value, for its own sake, what is not intrinsically good – money, domination, weapons – we are in error.’ If this paragraph sounds too normative, let’s introduce Ronnow-Rasmussen (2011, 1) who adds another value definition: personal value. When tidying his desk, he found a small poem written by his daughter years ago. He could not throw it away – it had some value for him. There is a distinction between value and value-for: a distinction between impersonal and personal value; (ibid pp. 55-56) there is an attitudinal rather than normative element when personal value is defined – a ’for-someone’s-sake’ (FSS) attitude is directed towards objects of personal value.

This blog has made an educator’s toolbox quite heavy with theories. Now it will even be strengthened by a practical input from Finnish schoolworld. The question: ’Ethics – what is it?’ was presented to 11 principals and 74 teachers.The overall atmosphere of their responses was practical: ’a need for ethics in everyday situations or for providing direction in today’s world’; ’how to meet and treat a student’; ’using correct language’; ’it clarifies values in collaboration’; ’it provides more education about human relationships’; ’worrying about ethics being forgotten among economic problems’. Moreover, what became of extreme importance was an interest in learning more about ethics and morals.

The Values data provided by the informants was derived from their answers to questions regarding their personal values. Depending on the questionnaire, the questions were posed using the following wording: 1. Values? 2. What are your values? 3. How would you describe your own values? 4. What values are important to you? The respondents included 2 superintendents, 10 principals, 75 teachers and 5 school secretaries. The following table presents the identified conceptions of values; together with it and my Ethical umbrella I hope I found a few elements for an EXCELLENT teacher’s toolbox.

 Respect for others 44

1. Fairness, justice 30
2. Work 29
3. Honesty 27
4. Home, religion, fatherland 15
5. Candour 12
6. Nature, environment 6
7. Trust 6
8. Self-esteem 6
9. Tolerance 6
10. Empathy 5
11. Goodness 5
12. Safety 4
13. Rules 4
14. Leisure, culture 4
15. Truth 3
16. Optimism 3
17. Responsibility 3
18. ‘An ordinary person’s good life’ 2
19. Mental development 2
20. Beauty 2
21. Courage 2
22. Resilience 2
23. Humour 2
24. Emotional intelligence 1
25. Creativeness 1
    

Total: 226 expressions