1699EDN Assignment 3: Analysis of an Ethical Scenario in Teaching

This report provides an analysis of an ethical scenario involving a new teacher at Beetmont State High School and her experienced mentor, Ms. Tracy Harris. The scenario highlights a situation where the new teacher grapples with an ethical dilemma concerning Ms. Harris's interactions with students, including sharing her personal phone number and receiving inappropriate content. The report identifies the ethically challenging features of the scenario, such as the lack of proof, the senior teacher's reputation, and the violation of Queensland College of Teachers' professional boundaries. The analysis employs two ethical theories: Utilitarianism and Virtue Ethics, to evaluate the situation and determine potential courses of action. The report concludes that the new teacher should report the actions of her mentor, as they violate ethical standards and potentially harm students, emphasizing the importance of adhering to professional rules and ethical conduct in the teaching profession.

Running head: ANALYSIS OF AN ETHICAL SCENERIO
ANALYSIS OF AN ETHICAL SCENERIO
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ANALYSIS OF AN ETHICAL SCENERIO
Executive Summary
This paper provides a brief overview about the ethical challenges faced by the academic
organization understanding the behavioral culture of people who are associated with the
respective organization. The key part of the study has developed upon categorizing the research
on the theory of virtuality and utility that has performed to understand the challenges faced by
the respective organization.

2ANALYSIS OF AN ETHICAL SCENERIO
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................4
Overview of the Scenario............................................................................................................4
Scenario features that raised some ethically challenging situation for the new teacher..............5
Ethical Perspective for Analyzing the Scenario:.........................................................................6
Arguments for Ethical Prospective:.............................................................................................9
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference.......................................................................................................................................11

3ANALYSIS OF AN ETHICAL SCENERIO
Introduction
This paper aims to analyze a scenario of ethical dilemma between two teachers. The
scenario states that Ms. Tracy Harris is one of the senior teacher of Beetmont State High School.
This is the school, where maximum number of student’s parents are unemployed and less
number of students are unable to move to the university. Ms. Tracy Harris is the mentor cum
fried of a new teacher who use to teach students of Year 8 Vocational Math Class of the said
school. As a new teacher, she has faced several barriers to make a close bond with her students.
On the opposite hand, Ms. Tracy Harris has achieved her success in maintaining good image as
well as she has developed different strategies to help her students beyond the school hours even
she allows her students to communicate through emails and gave her personal phone number.
One day Ms. Harris has shared her feelings about one student named Dylan (suffers from
Attention Hyperactivity Disorder) with the new teacher. Ms. Harris also explains the condition of
Dylan’s mother. She said Dylan has dreamed of becoming a social worker and he wants to help
other kids. Ms. Harris has shown a mean joke to the new teacher and said that Dylan shared. She
also said that she would share the personal number of the new teacher to her students. For this
reason, the new teacher felt in ethical dilemma and she became confused about the fact that
whether she report this to the higher authority or leave the matter because she has no proof or
witness to prove the authenticity of her complaint. This paper aims to present an ethical analysis
of the above -mentioned situation. The paper further determines different key features of the
particular scenario that make the situation ethically challenging for the new teacher and it also
provides the actions taken by the teacher. Thus, this report has analyzed the above -mentioned

4ANALYSIS OF AN ETHICAL SCENERIO
scenario with the help of two ethical theories like Utilitarian Ethical Theory and Virtue Theory
(Shaw, 2016).
Discussion
Overview of the Scenario
The main responsibility of an ideal teacher is to provide a right solution to her fellow
students and a teacher should always help her students to achieve their desired success. A teacher
should maintain a good and friendly relation with his/her students to make them feel comfortable
to share their queries. As per the scenario, Ms. Tracy Harris is one of the reputed senior teacher
of Beetmont State High School. She has developed different strategies to help her students. On
the other hand, the new teacher has tried her best to form a good relation with her students of
Year 8 Vocational Math Class of the said school. While sharing the common school staff room
Ms. Harris has gradually become the mentor cum friend of the new teacher and she shares her
strategies to encourage the students. She said that she has shared her personal number with her
all students to provide support and help beyond the scheduled school hours. Students used to
love Ms. Harris for her charming behavior, support and, concern for them. Ms. Harris use to
discuss about Dylan, one of the student of the said school. While discussing about Dylan with the
new teacher, she said that Dylan has suffered from the Attention Hyperactivity Disorder and his
mother is facing different barriers to raise Dylan.
As per the scenario, the new teacher has allowed her students to ask their doubts through
school email id. At one day while spending good time with her mentor (Ms Harris) the new
teacher has puzzled to know that Dylan shared a crude meme with Ms. Harris. She get to know
that Dylan has shared this joke through the social networking sites like snapchat. She advised her
mentor as per the Queensland College of Teacher’s Professional Boundaries, teachers are not

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allowed to interact with students through any social media or social networking sites. On the
other side, Ms. Harris said that she would share the personal number of the new teacher to meet
her student’s demand. Thus, this has raised a challenging situation for the new teacher and get
confused whether she should complain it to the Deputy or the Head Department because it may
hamper the good relation with her mentor or she (Ms. Harris) may face serious trouble that
would affect her reputation badly.
Scenario features that raised some ethically challenging situation for the new
teacher
 The first challenging situation that may raise if the new teacher complain against the
mentor is she has no proof against Ms. Harris that may affect the authenticity of her
complain.
 This may affect the good relation between the new teacher and her mentor.
 Ms. Harris has considered one of the most reputed senior teacher of the mentioned
school, she should have more experience than the new teacher should and thus she knows
what is ethically right and work accordingly. Thus, there is a high chance that higher
authority should act on favor of their experienced member more than the new teacher is.
 However, Ms. Harris is well known and famous for her kind behavior and her helping
attitude for her students, students would tends to stand beside her. Thus, this will affect
the relation between the new teacher and her students.
 The new teacher may face serious trouble if she perform any task against the rules set for
the Teacher’s Professional Boundaries of Queensland College. As per this college,
teachers are not allowed to perform any kind of interaction with their students through
social media or any personal contacts. Thus for this reason, the new teacher should
perform according to the policies provided by the higher authority.

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Ethical Perspective for Analyzing the Scenario:
On The Basis Of Utilitarianism Ethical Theory
The ethical theory of Utilitarianism states that a person should perform any action or take
any decision based on the consequences or the outcomes of the chosen action (Ebenmstein,
2018). This theory promotes the view that people should able to distinguish right from wrong
and should adopt different measures that would help to generate welfare for the greater number
of people (Letwin et al., 2016). On basis of this theory, there are several negative consequences
that the new teacher may face and this may act as a major ethical barrier to maintain a good
relation with her mentor Ms. Tracy Harris. Even this would affect the career and reputation of
Ms. Harris and she may take major steps to hamper the reputation of the new teacher.
On the other hand, as sharing personal number of any teacher to his/her students has
strictly prohibited by the policies of Queensland College, no teacher should share their personal
number to any students associated with the mentioned school. According to the school norms
social interactions between any teacher and students has considered as the most unethical action
as many of them may misuse this opportunity (Kahane et al., 2015). In the given scenario, it has
noticed that Dylan has shared a crude meme or joke with Ms. Harris through personal email and
it has done against the school policy and norms. Even it has observed that Ms. Harris has
mentioned that she would provide the personal number of the new teacher to fulfil the demand of
her students. Thus, considering the situation it can be analyzed as the unethical action and the
new teacher should inform the higher authority or she may make her mentor understand about
the facts that teachers should perform any actions considering all the professional rules and
ethics (Goldsmith & Burton, 2017).

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Ethical Perspectives of Virtue Ethical Theory
The main concept of the Virtue Ethical Theory is people should perform their task
honestly maintaining all the rules and procedures stated by the authority (Hart, 2019). People
should focused on the individual character ethics and professional ethics. According to the Virtue
ethical theory, people should perform any action of judging others based on their moral status,
honesty, loyalty (Yazdani & Murad, 2015). Any person should perform any task not just based
on the rules and norms but he should perform based on the moral values and professional ethics
(Caldwell, Hasan & Smith, 2015). He should put focus on moral values along with the
professional rules (Kaptein, 2017).
In this case, Ms. Harris has seemed to maintain a good relation with all her students and
she used to develop different strategies with the purpose of improving their student’s
performance and help them to develop their skills. She said that she allows her student to ask
their doubts through personal emails and she remain connected with them through social media
Utilitarian Ethical Theory

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that is against the school norms and policies. Besides all the mentioned positive advantages,
there are several negative impact on the other students present in Year 8 Vocational Math Class
of the same school. Observing the facilities accessed by students of Ms. Harris, the other students
who belongs to the class of the new teacher has started demanding for the same. This raised a
pressure for the new teacher to bridge the communication gap and maintain a good relation with
them. For the rising demand from the student’s side, the new teacher compelled to share the
school email id with every students to solve their doubts beyond the class hours. However, she
noticed that Ms. Harris has maintain a close interaction with Dylan through social media or
social networking sites like snap chats. Misusing this opportunity, Dylan has shared a crude
meme or joke with her teacher named Ms. Tracy Harris through personal email id.
After watching the said things the new teacher has advised her mentor, Ms. Harris that
they are not supposed to interact with school students through social media as this action is
against the school policy. After this, Ms. Harris wants to share the number of the new teacher
with her students to satisfy their demands and requirements. This action has seemed to be
unethical as it put negative impact on the students mind and this may affect their discipline
badly, because they get the scope of utilizing the opportunity in a wrong way. This may affect
the student’s disciplinary actions badly and may omit the limit of the acceptance of both the
sides. In other words, student may start disobeying their teachers because of the causal zone
created among teachers and students. Thus, it may affect the student’s academy negatively.
Even if the action has exposed in the higher authority the reputation of the new teacher, get
hampered.
Considering the entire above-mentioned act it can determine that the situation mentioned
in the scenario is completely unethical as it affects both the students and teachers reputation

9ANALYSIS OF AN ETHICAL SCENERIO
badly. Thus as per the ethical theory of Virtue, this scenario is completely unethical as it indulge
the students and teachers into wrong directions and to avoid this every teacher should perform
his/her duty based on the professional rules established by the authority (Elliott, 2015).
Arguments for Ethical Prospective:
 Based on the concept provided by the Utilitarian theory, the new teacher should inform
the higher authority or the Deputy Head about the mentioned actions performed by her
mentor, Ms. Harris because this action has performed against the rules of Queensland
College and it went against Professional Ethics of the Teachers.
 The new teacher may adopt different strategies and make her students understand about
the disciplinary measures and make them understand about the value system.
 Considering the concept of Virtue Ethical theory, it is the responsibility of the new
teacher to maintain good relation with students and the duties must set upon the norms
and condition of the school authorities and professional ethics of the teachers as per the
Queensland College. They should maintain the duties honestly and sj2ould be loyal
towards the organization.
Conclusion
This paper presents a detailed analysis of a scenario of the Beetmont State High School.
The major number of the student of this school belongs to the background of low socio-
economic standard. Ms. Tracy Harris is one of the reputed senior teacher of this school. She has
maintained a good relation with all the students present in her class. The new teacher has seemed
to teach in Year 8 Vocational Math Class. The new teacher has tried her best to build a good
bond with all the students present in her class. On the contrary, Ms. Harris has one of the most
popular teacher among all students because of her helping nature and gentle behavior. She has

10ANALYSIS OF AN ETHICAL SCENERIO
developed different strategies to encourage their students. Gradually Ms. Harris has become a
good friend of the new teacher and share her strategies to maintain good relation with different
students Dylan is one of the student who suffers from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,
but with the teachings and guidance provided by Ms. Harris his result has improved. After some
time the new teacher get to know that her mentor used to provide her personal email id and
phone number to all the students against the school’s policy. It put negative impact on the other
students and they has started asking for the same to the new teacher but this has against the
policy of the Teachers Professional Ethics of Queensland College. On the other hand, Dylan used
often misuse the opportunity and shared crude joke with Ms. Harris. The mentor of Ms. Harris
wants to share the number without the permission of the new teacher. After analyzing the entire
scenario based on the two ethical theories it can be conclude that the new teacher should inform
the higher authority as this would help her to stop the unethical measures by her mentor and
should perform her duties as per the rules and policies given by the school.

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Reference
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Goldsmith, J., & Burton, E. (2017, March). Why teaching ethics to AI practitioners is
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