What are the moral virtues that the professional teacher must observe before they begin teaching?

The core of teaching consists of four basic values: dignity, truthfulness, fairness and responsibility & freedom.

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Teacher’s ethical principles
1. Patience
2. Self Control
3. Professionalism
4. Attitude
5. Fairness
7. Intelligence
8. Act Proactively
9. Integrity

All teaching is founded on ethics – whether it be the teacher-student relationship, pluralism or a teacher’s relationship with their work.

Dignity means respect for humanity. Teachers must respect every person, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, gender diversity, appearance, age, religion, social standing, origin, opinions, abilities and achievements.

Truthfulness is one of the core values in teachers’ basic task, which involves steering learners in navigating life and their environment. Honesty with oneself and others and mutual respect in all communication is a basic aspect of teachers’ work.

Fairness is important both when encountering individual learners and groups but also in the work community. Fairness involves in particular promoting equality and non-discrimination and avoiding favouritism.

Teachers are entitled to their own values, but in their work, teachers’ responsibility is tied to their basic task and its standards such as legislation and the curriculum.

Teacher’s ethical principles

The aim of teachers’ ethical principles is to draw attention to the ethics involved in teaching.

Good professional ethics are among a teacher’s most important resources.

Teaching is not easy, and many do not realize the demands and stress level that teachers bear. Any full-time job is grueling, but having to look out for and be responsible for thirty children at one time can be overwhelming. It takes a good many virtues to be a good teacher.

1. Patience

More than anything, teachers need patience. It is important to remember that not everyone learns at the same speed and that things are going to happen in the classroom that you have no control over. Teachers must learn to roll with the punches.

2. Self Control

There are going to be days when little Johnny has a rough morning, and he is going to take his feelings out on his teacher simply because he is young and does not know any better. Teachers need self control, so when Johnny mouths off to his teacher, he or she will be able to step back and ask Johnny, “What’s wrong with you this morning?”

3. Professionalism

Teachers are role models and need to remember that they are not students. In fact, students look up to their teachers, so they need to pride themselves on professionalism. Dress professionally and act professionally, and your students will take you seriously.

4. Attitude

Teachers need to possess a “can-do” attitude and encourage students that they can do anything as long as they put their minds to the task.

5. Fairness

Treat all students as fairly as you can; even though this doesn’t always seem easy.

6. Respect

If teachers respect their students, they will be respected by their students. This goes back to being a role model.

7. Intelligence

Teachers should demonstrate a high level of intelligence and knowledge. Teachers may not know all the answers, but they should know where to find the answers to the questions that they do not know.

8. Act Proactively

Do not react to situations; instead take a proactive approach and prevent situations from getting out of hand. Know how to deal with the student who disrupts class before he becomes a habitually disruptive student.

9. Integrity

Teachers should have morals and ethics and should not compromise their integrity.

10. Humor

Make learning fun for students and not only will you make it more memorable, you will enjoy teaching so much more and your students will value and respect you as a teacher so much more.

Patience

You have to be able to remain calm when you are teaching. If a pupil is getting frustrated about something, the teacher cannot become frustrated as well. As teachers, we are role models to our pupils and must provide a positive image for them. We do not want to teach them to be impatient and get very angry easily as this will only cause more problems for them. If that is what they see the teachers doing in the classroom, they will think it is okay to do this too.

You need to be able to understand that some children are less confident in some areas compared to others, so you need to have the patience to give them the extra help they need and not get annoyed as soon as they are stuck.

I remember whilst I was on placement not long ago, there was a pupil who was falling behind in maths, therefore I sat with her to keep encouraging her to get her work done. She was not interested at all and was very easily distracted, so it really tested my patience trying to get her to concentrate.

Fairness

Fairness for a teacher means treating the pupils equally. If you fail to do this, it could lead to suspicions of favouritism which may land you in trouble. Pupils have a right to be treated equally and you must respect that as a teacher.

Examples of times where fairness is crucial is when marking work. One answer for one person cannot be right if the same answer for another person is wrong. It is just not fair to mark people’s work differently. Another example is sorting issues between pupils that may have come up. Often, a dispute will take place in the playground at playtime or lunchtime and you have to respond fairly when trying to sort it out with the children. Often the teacher isn’t there to see it therefore cannot only give one person into trouble.

Fairness is an issue that teachers have to be aware of all day, every day. They also need to know how to address it right.

Compassion

Compassion is caring for the misfortunes of others, so for the teacher this means they have to be able to understand why some pupils do the things they do. Whether it is behaviour issues, or they are struggling with their work, you must be able to accommodate for this and be flexible enough to work round them and find a way to teach them which will help.

It is said that pupils from a poor background tend not to do as well in school as the children with a better background. When this is the case, we must understand it and help them to improve. However this is a stereotypical statement to make and is not always true. Disabilities are something else you need to be compassionate to deal with.

Kindness

Kindness for a teacher is to be friendly, approachable and nice to the children. I know from my experience in school that a teacher who was kind and friendly made a massive difference. No child wants a grumpy, horrible teacher, nor do other teachers want to work with one!

If a teacher is kind, it sets a good example of how the pupils should treat everyone in the class, including the teacher. You tend to get on with a teacher more if they are nice, therefore you’re more encouraged to listen to what they are saying and more willing to learn.

If you are kind it can go a long way. The people who you treat kindly will often return the favour and be kind to you. We need kindness to make the world go round!

Tolerance

As a teacher you must put up with a lot of things. Work load, behaviour issues and colleagues who you may not get along with are all examples of things that you may have to tolerate. You may disagree with something but you have to tolerate it because that is just what you have to do. For example, a lot of teachers have issues with the curriculum for excellence. However, they put up with it because they have no choice but to deliver it to the children. This is the way you’re told to educate them, so this is what you do.

Not only is it tolerating with things you disagree with, but you have to tolerate issues which cannot be helped e.g. disabilities. You have to be prepared to understand what pupils with disabilities are going through and perhaps change your teaching style to cater for them too.