Summary
This article is a reflection on the fundamental role of ethics in teacher performance and its importance in the training of students. It shows some scenarios of the social and economic reality in which Nicaraguan teachers operate, framing some circumstances that make them lose the praxis of ethics in the exercise of their role of forming and forging values, but at the same time it offers alternatives for to maintain with firmness and social conscience that propensity for ethics as an immutable and omnipresent value of its educational work, as well as the necessary motivation to be a permanent example of good professional practice within an inconsistent system that overwhelms and impoverishes education.
Abstract
This article is a reflection about the role of the ethic in the teaching and the education process. As an educator in function and as a forming process become a teacher. It faces some social and economics scenery which Nicaraguan teachers are involve, demonstrating some circumstances that have permitted to lose the control of Ethic as a part of the values. At the same, it offers some strategies in order to preserve the social conscious concerning to Ethic as a part of the principal ingredient in the education system. Furthermore, the Motivation plays an important role being a permanent example during the schooling growth in the middle of the inconsistent system which damage and devastate.
Teacher by: Juan Berbel
Early vocation and always well felt, this to be a Master for love delivered, This one is lighting roads through life, Hopefully surrounded by children.
Putting artist soul in the noble task, with missionary strength and a delicate hand;
know how to burn for the sake of an idea, knowing how to follow the star of good among dreamed…
Sower without laziness, put in the besana
next to the blond wheat poppy seed;
release joy and faith every morning, and in the difficult trance to be with God alone.
Taken from the website www.uhu.es/cine.educacion/poesiaenlasaulas#Maestro
I begin with this poem, because it inspires me and transports me to my school years, to recognize the important role played in my life by the teachers who contributed to my education.
Since I was little I conceived that the most respectable person, after my mother and father, was my teacher. I learned to respect and admire each one of my elementary school teachers, because from them I learned the alphabet, the first syllables "ma-pa-sa-la", the first numbers, the first poems, hymns and folk songs.
I remember that back then, in the 1970s, when I started elementary school, there was no preschool program, we entered school directly at the age of seven. For this reason, traditionally, before entering primary school, we attended the first letters school, as they were called at that time, to learn precisely the first letters, that is, to read and write.
Now that I am an adult and I remember, I remember that something curious about those little schools, although I never knew why, is that in almost all of them the teachers were old girls, and the one who was near my house was not the exception, it was the girl Alice.
I loved going to school, my mom got me ready for a snack and with great enthusiasm I went to my school, because I knew that my teacher was there, waiting for us ready to stand in a circle and read us a story, which woke up in me a great admiration and respect for my teacher.
When I realized what love she always treated us with, she thought: "I would like to be like her."
I was surprised to see how she comforted the boys and girls who for the first time detached themselves from maternal and paternal protection and, crying inconsolably, arrived at their first day of school. I admired how she helped higher grade students solve their homework and felt that she knew everything.
The girl Alicia was truly special, she had a lot of patience, and she was also a very creative person. Once a month we would dress up as what we wanted, what our childish fantasy indicated and gave us sweets, I do not know if it was her strategy to fall in love with the school or it was for her love of sweets that she gladly shared
In my childish mentality, she was the embodiment of what Briggs and Peat affirm:
“ The key to creative activity lies in the self-organization of the available materials. For humans this means that we must create with the material of our own lives. Like water, we can always find a way to be creative with what is available. ” Briggs and Peat: 1999, P.39.
Once in elementary school, continue visiting the girl Alicia in the afternoons, because in the mornings she attended formal school. I always had her words in my memory, urging us to attend school to get to university: "you will be great among the greats, but for that you must go to school and get to university".
The girl Alicia, like my elementary school teachers, were people who somehow touched my being. From them I learned not only to read and write, but to share with others, to respect others and myself, to honor my parents, to be a good student and to take care of nature (I remember that they took us to plant trees around school).
When I got to high school, I met teachers who, like the girl Alicia, became part of my life, some more deeply than others.
Today I realize that this learning of values that was instilled in me was also due in large part to the example they gave us with their model of life.
Which proves and reaffirms one of Boff's ideas on ethics:
" Ethics is of the order of practice and not of the theory. That is why the exemplary figures who witnessed the realization of a coherent ethic are important. ” Boff: 2004, P.23.
Today, at the time of my life, I am convinced that teachers with a true vocation for teaching are living testimonies of ethics, since with their examples they manage to touch the soul of their students and transform their lives.
Personally I have admired all the teachers I have had throughout my life, because from them I have not only learned the knowledge necessary for my professional performance, but also, through their examples, a love of values ethical, mainly honesty, perseverance, solidarity, respect for the ideas of others, love of neighbor, love of country and, especially, to live in harmony with others and nature. It is as Boff tells us once again: “Through passion we grasp the value of things. And value is the precious character of beings, that which makes them worthy of being and appealing. Boff: 2004, P.11. ”
In other words, education in values is not only a circumstance of passive transmission or incorporation of knowledge and knowledge. Values education is a process by which the subject himself creates and recreates the senses of knowledge, which lead to affirming in people ethical and moral values, which should occupy a central place in the entire context and school environment.
Therefore, ethical and moral education is not the sole responsibility of teachers, nor of any specific curricular area, it is a responsibility shared with and among the entire educational community, mainly with the families of the students.
Education must have clearly defined the role and importance that ethics and morals occupy within the formative practices of society, and that this teaching-learning process of ethical and moral values directly affects both formal education and Not formal.
Continuing along the path of my training, when I finished my university studies I began my work as an English teacher in an elementary school. There I taught for two years, from preschool to sixth grade, and then became an English teacher at the secondary level for seven years. This helped me to become a teacher at the university level, which was a long process since at that time previous experience was required at both educational levels (primary and secondary). In other words, to occupy a position as a teacher at a university, a series of requirements had to be met, not only academic but also ethical, since the training of future professionals was in their hands.
It is worth noting that ethics in the education process establishes, through reason and tenderness, regulatory standards for human behavior that guarantee solving problems that affect harmony between people and, in turn, provide real solutions.
Therefore, the teacher constitutes an important engine of the process of education in values to contribute to the development of people and the transformation of society. Therefore, being a teacher is a great social responsibility, since society requires him or her to form beings who are able to live in harmony and make their community a pleasant and prosperous place. In other words, society bears a gigantic responsibility on the shoulders of teachers, but that, without the cooperation and participation of all the sectors that make up the community, it will be difficult for them to achieve.
“ Today we are experiencing a serious world crisis of values. It is difficult for the vast majority of humanity to know what is right and what is not. This obscuring of the ethical horizon results in an enormous insecurity in life and a permanent tension in social relations, which tend to organize more around private interests than around law and justice ”. (Boff: 2004, p.9)
From this crisis that Boff mentions, teachers are not exempt. In our Nicaraguan society, they are the lowest-paid professionals in the entire Central American region. Furthermore, many of them do not have access to decent housing, lack professional development programs and lack of motivation.
All this problem creates moral insecurity, and induces many and many to break their ethics. There are known cases of male and female teachers who, in order to obtain extra income to alleviate their poor financial situation, force their students to take private courses on vacation to pass their subject. There are also cases of swapping school cleaning jobs for passing a subject or for extra points and / or rescue, worse still, students hear comments from teachers who make immoral proposals (called payment in kind).
To the foregoing, it should be added that teachers sometimes carry out orders from their authorities to give extra points to students who participate in musical bands or other manifestations of different themes. The problem is not that they participate, but that their voluntariness, solidarity and social responsibility are mutilated, since they are taught that their participation is “in exchange for” and not because “I have the will to”.
Currently, many recent college graduates are becoming university professors without the requirement of prior experience, only out of political favoritism. And, in the case of primary and secondary schools, there are still empirical and empirical teachers who have not yet finished their academic training and, therefore, do not have a degree.
On the other hand, there are teachers who have chosen this profession out of necessity and not out of vocation, since the lack of jobs has made them find an economic alternative in the educational system. Is this ethical in a society that requires competent professionals with a vocation in education every day?
This is also reflected in the existence of teachers who have their academic training in a specific area of knowledge but are located in another in order to complete their hourly load, an example is the case of English teachers or teachers teaching math or vice versa.
The previous scenario worsens when we observe teachers with classrooms of up to 60 or 70 students, which, obviously, has serious consequences for the teacher, not only pedagogical and methodological, but over time some lose their voices. So it is worth asking if with this number of students in a classroom, can the proposed educational objectives be achieved? Is this example a lack of ethics in education? Or is it just one type of exploitation?
We coexist in a society that has achieved great achievements, but in which there are still important problems to solve. Especially in the educational system, where there are also the personal problems of teachers, such as their dissatisfaction and frustration with the system, illnesses, depression, collective problems, lack of solidarity, aggression and violations of all kinds, and, above all, great economic inequalities.
As Capra well expresses: “… we are in a state of deep world crisis. It is a complex and multidimensional crisis that affects all aspects of our lives: health and livelihood, the quality of the environment, and the relationship with our fellow men, the economy, politics and technology. The crisis has political, intellectual, moral and spiritual dimensions. Capra: 1981, p.11.) ”
Therefore, it is necessary and urgent that education professionals and universities, together with the National Ministry of Education, analyze how these unethical situations can be eradicated from the educational process, taking into account what Morín suggests for the search for solutions:
"It is important that ethics return to its sources: regenerating its sources of responsibility-solidarity means at the same time regenerating the individual / species / society bonding loop in and through the regeneration of each of these instances. ”(Morín: 2006, p.32).
It is to give an integral sense to ethics as imperative praxis that is in function of the well-being of humanity and not lose sight of the end for which we educate ourselves. Although it is a duty of every person to act ethically, we teachers are obliged and obliged to always be ethical and ethical, it is a non-negotiable role that society imposes on us, therefore, it is necessary to demonstrate this ethical responsibility as an attribute to all The humanity.
I consider it important to raise the ethical issue throughout the educational process. It is appropriate that teacher training is impregnated with experiences in values that help them to appropriate ethics and share them with their students, since currently professionals are only being trained in specific specialties, ready for immediate job performance, but who lack training humanist, generating indifference and social insecurity in them.
On the other hand, it is useful and necessary to promote the exchange of experiences and solidarity between students from rural and urban areas, in order to promote their identification and social unification. Likewise, the Ministry of Education, universities and Normal Schools (teacher training centers) must commit to develop motivational and personal growth actions aimed at teachers at the national level without distinction.
It is also essential to create spaces for conversations between mothers / fathers, with teachers and students where relevant situations on attitudes and / or situations of the educational community can be debated.
In other words, among all of us who make up the educational community, we must be able to develop life projects for healthy coexistence, which makes it possible to achieve our own ideals and the progression of values in order to channel human behavior towards better relationships between all forms of life and, therefore, with the same nature.
Let's return to Capra's sentence:
" It will only be possible to find the solution… with a profound transformation of our social institutions, our values and our ideas." (Capra Fritjof)
Bibliographic references
- Boff Leonardo, 2004, Ethics and Morals: the search for the foundations.Briggs John and Peat F. David, 1999, The Seven Laws of CHAOS: The advantages of a chaotic life.Capra Fritjof, 1981. Crucial Point.Morín, Edgar, 2006, Method 6: Ethics.
