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Making of a teacher

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-27 07:39

It is never too much for a teacher to uphold basic professional ethics. But whether this means that a teacher has the moral obligation to protect his or her students at the risk of his or her own life seems to be a rather hazy ethical terrain for some. That is why it has become the focus of a debate after a teacher left his students behind to make good his escape during the Sichuan quake early last month.

The revised professional ethics for middle school teachers published by the Ministry of Education will put a full stop to this debate. It adds a stipulation that a teacher has the obligation of protecting his or her students from danger. Its publication aims at soliciting public opinion nationwide before its adoption.

Even without such a specification, very few would have deemed it as an acceptable behavior for a teacher to run out of the classroom for his own life without taking care of his or her student in time of an emergency.

The self-defense by that teacher who did exactly that without a guilty conscience has angered the public. That he had the cheek to claim himself to be an excellent teacher is anything but evidence that this guy knows what makes a qualified teacher.

Imparting knowledge to his or her students is only part of the qualities required of a teacher. Helping them cultivate moral integrity is an equally important part of a teacher's duties.

As both responsibilities have an essential bearing on the future of students, the teaching profession has been a job held in great reverence for thousands of years.

An unethical conduct by a teacher constitutes a profanity to the sanctity of this profession. The cowardice and selfishness that the teacher displayed when his own and the students' lives were threatened is anything but a quality that a qualified teacher should possess.

Professional ethics dictate the line that anyone must toe in doing his or her job. In most cases, well-educated people do not need such ethics written down for them to follow since the majority of them are self-evident.

Of course, in time of an earthquake, not every teacher had enough courage in organizing evacuation of students. But it is beyond common sense for a teacher to deny his moral obligation to save his students first in time of an emergency.

It is definitely right and necessary to clarify this moral obligation by adding a specification to professional ethics for teachers.

(China Daily 06/27/2008 page8)