For Further Thought - Essay Example

The choice and decisions a teacher research may face are difficult indeed. Carrying out the research in the school where you work, you never know what results you may get. We all strive for the excellence and may be rather passionate about our work. However, in this case we have no right to risk other people’s dignity and feelings, and harm professional pride only because we find out that they make some faults. Everybody does mistakes. The task of a teacher researcher is not to point to the individual’s mistakes, but to track the general tendencies and help people improve their work.

The ethical issues arising before a teacher researcher may be dealt with easily in case you’ve got a sense of tact and have respect to other people. And yet, it is very useful to be reminded of professional ethics from time to time. As you read the chapter you feel embarrassed as to the results of the study undertook in the Billabong Elementary School, which aim was sooner to prove once again the advantages of the school in order to share them with the rest of the world. Even on the condition that we do not work at the school there appears a rash desire to change and improve everything.

This is not our task, however. A teacher researcher is an outside observer, polite, thoughtful, and respectful. I find that the ethical guideline for teacher research outlined in the article is of great value for both beginning and working researchers. It is a kind of basic rules to be followed in work, which is associated with much intimacy and interpersonal relationships. The article provided a clear vision of answers to the questions put, though I felt rather confused at first. As to the data drawing a negative picture of individual teachers in the school, there exist certain rules concerning the how to do a research.

It is very important to inform the faculty about the problems the school has. However, it should be done in an impersonal manner, without concrete names and grades. The confidentiality and anonymity are the major requirements of any research. So the faculty and the director should be explained the rules at once and informed that no names will be mentioned. A good professional will always understand his mistakes without being personally pointed to them. The rest of the faculty did not know about the problem, so let them stay unaware of their colleagues’ mistakes.

It is not our task to prosecute anybody. We only propose help; people should make choices and decisions themselves. Moreover, the results of the study showed organizational mistakes. These results challenge the whole collective. There is no sense to mention any individual data, if even the textbooks were chosen erroneously. The improvements can be achieved by the school only as a whole. There is no need to share data on an individual basis either. We simply do not have such a right. A researcher should never hurt other people’s feelings, harm professional dignity or spoil the interpersonal relationships between a teacher and her students, which will certainly take place in case of the data disclosure.

Other risks a teacher researcher runs are bad relationship with the colleagues, embarrassment, loss of trust and impossibility to carry out any further research work in the same school. Nobody will be willing to work with a person, who knows one’s bad secrets. Sharing data with the teachers, a researcher risks to find himself in a very awkward situation. So how can we promote professional development without hurting anyone? First of all, we are to keep confidentiality and anonymity. No personal or concrete data should be reported to the faculty or director.

The researcher should behave naturally, without expressing his possible underlying attitudes and knowledge. In case someone asks him to reveal the names of the participants, he should politely reject to do it, explaining that this is the strict ethical rule for all the researchers. While the researchers got the participant’s informed consent in the Billabong Elementary School case they have nothing to feel shame about. They are not going to deceive or blame anyone. The received results show a much worse level of knowledge than it was expected.

Besides it has been found that the situation is caused by the divergence in the methodology and curriculum. It is reasonable to propose that the improvements can be reached only through collective work.