TITLE: A Question of Ethics
AUTHOR: Les Morse, Juneau-Douglas High School;
Juneau, AK
GRADE LEVEL: Appropriate for Grades 9-12
OVERVIEW: A Question of Ethics is a unit of
instruction that helps students to understand the term
ethics, learn what ethical questions are, and develop a
self-checking ethics guide. This lesson can be used
with a variety of subject areas, but would best be
served in a government class, Law class, economics
class, or a communications class. I first used this in
a class called contemporary communications where we
studied English for the business and world of work
areas.
OBJECTIVES: Students will be able to:
1. Explain the meaning of ethics, and have a working
understanding of the word.
2. Recognize ethical violations in the working world,
or in the political arena, etc. (this may depend
upon subject area).
3. Develop and describe what a personal ethics check
is.
4. Identify solutions to ethical situations.
ACTIVITIES AND PROCEDURES:
1. Have each student develop a definition for the
word "ethics." Discuss the different definitions
and make sure that each student has a good working
definition of the word ethics.
2. Present the students with some general ethical
questions. Have the students work in pairs to
decide if the situations are actually ethical
violations, and if so define the violation and
develop an alternative action that is not an
ethical violation. I typically present the
students with ten situations and ask them to
address five of the situations. Once they have
done this I ask them to share with the class or a
neighboring pair of students, depending upon time.
3. I have the students look through the evening
paper, and any back papers they might have,
identifying ethical violations in government,
business, or other areas. They are to clip the
stories and bring them into class along with a
written description of the ethical questions
within the story. These are shared with other
students and can be displayed in the classroom.
4. This year I used the book The Power of Ethical
Management by Kenneth Blanchard and Norman Vincent
Peale as reading material about ethic. This book
is appropriate for upper level high school
students (The book is short, and can be read
quickly by most students). Introduce the book
during the second day and allow for some time for
the students to begin reading. This book is
optional, but provides the students with some
background to develop a personal ethics check.
5. Develop a personal ethics check. Most students,
if they read the book by Blanchard will use the
following; 1) is it legal, 2) is it balanced (fair
to all parties), 3) how will it make me feel about
myself.
6. I have students identify an ethical question from
their own life. They then write about the ethical
question, Identify how they handled the situation,
and indicate if they would have handled the
situation differently given another chance. I ask
the students to hand this in only if they want to,
but they must show me they completed the
assignment.
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER:
1. Have the students develop a collage about ethical
violations and how they view the word ethics and
ethical situations. Display them in the
classroom.
2. Essay. I develop an essay that fits the subject
area. This past year the class I used this in
related to the world of business so I used the
following question;
"You have just been hired to work for a large
sales firm. You are the Special Assistant to the
Personnel Director for Operation Ethics. Several
ethical violations have occurred in the personnel
department and sales division. You are to
recommend to the new Personnel Director how to
deal with the past violations, and recommend a new
ethics policy, and develop a plan of
implementation."
I tell the students to be creative with their
response, and to fill in gaps of the situation in
any way they choose. The question can be designed
to fit many different curricular areas.
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