The Intimidating Power of Integrity 580.4
A teacher once wrote me about a parent with clout at her school who asked her to change attendance records to make her child’s record look better. The teacher said she thought long and hard about the request but eventually refused, knowing it would make the parent angry.
First, I commended her moral courage. I wish it didn’t take courage to do the right thing, especially in such a clear case as this, but in the real world people with power often retaliate when they don’t get what they want. This can make your life difficult.
Moral courage is the much-needed bodyguard of conscience and character. The personal costs of putting our integrity on the auction block are so high that we simply have to take the risk. Once we start on the slippery slope of moral compromise, it’s hard to resist the downward slide.
My first instinct was that the parent who subjected the teacher to this corrupt and corrupting request was a thoroughgoing villain, but I suspected she was a basically decent mom so intent on helping her child that she just ignored her moral brakes.
It’s wrong to ask someone to lie or cheat, though, and when it comes from someone with power, it’s even worse. Power is intimidating even when it’s not used.
But unswerving integrity can also be intimidating. Clearly improper requests deserve an immediate, firm, and dignified response that leaves no ambiguity that they’re inappropriate. Be careful not to be self-righteous, but let people who ask worry about what you think of them.
If they persist, let them – not you – worry about the consequences.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
Comments
With zero tolerance in the school system, parents are forced to choose between doing what is right as a parent (discipline and structure) versus advocacy with the school (to prevent the school from imposing harsh discipline and an unworkable structure).
Letting a school expel a 2nd-3rd grade boy for wrestling on the grass at recess (in fun) with his best friend seems to be an ethical dilemma. This terrible, violent behavior must not be tolerated and must be punished in the most forceful manner possible (school position). As a parent, do I submit to this punishment of my child (and of our family), or do I approach the teacher/principal and ask for them to review the incident? Do they take the high ground by having a strict ethical/ behavioral code for the students, or is their imposition of the behavioral code only a guideline? Can they think and apply compassion and reason, or are they bots? As a parent, I see the "strict codes" bent regularly by teachers and administrators when they know the student, parents, and situtation. I am put into a position of asking them to reevaluate, and a postion of advocacy for my child to get them to think, reflect, and consider the crime and punishment. When the crime and punishment are mismatched, there is no ethical basis for that punishment. When I ask a teacher to reconsider whether a missing homework assignment (zero points) should simply be averaged with other scores for a developmentally immature little boy who did the homework but couldn't find it in his backpack (though it was there) and didn't turn it in, am I asking the teacher to be unethical? What if I turned the assignment in while at a parent-teacher meeting, and the teacher lost the assignment?
Asking a teacher to do something that violates their ethical values may be appropriate if their ethical values are inconsistent, shallow, and self-serving. There are always other valid ethical considerations, and some of us find ethical to also include compassion, understanding, context, purpose.
In your example of attendance records, the request clearly appears to be asking for something improper and perhaps illegal (schools are funded on attendance by the State of California).
In a more gray-case example, my son was shown as absent and tardy on a number of days. Some of the information was incorrect - specifically the days he was shown as attending some periods of the day when he was at home ill. Other attendance records in question went in the other direction (absent when he was there, so he says). Attendance in many classes was taken by other students, and a student not present at the start of class was frequently marked by teachers as absent even if they came to class late. Absence and tardy were treated differently by teachers for grading and for discipline by the administration. Is it unethical for me to question the attendance system and individuals using attendance to expel and discipline my child?
The black and white of ethics based on incomplete or inaccurate information is likely to lead to unethical outcomes. Unethical people hide behind rules and regulations and pronouncements of right, good, and fairness. Where interpretations are central to establishing what facts exist, motives and ethics are easily lumped with interpretations into the most unethical, self-righteous behaviors.
Posted by: Bob Hirsch | August 25, 2008 10:00 AM