Examining Codes of Ethics

I-1.5—To create and maintain safe and healthy settings that foster children’s social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development and that respect their dignity and their contributions.

This ideal is significant to me because I think it will be my responsibility to create and maintain safe and healthy settings.  It is my responsible for the setting to be safe, clean, and well maintained with a positive climate and culture.  This should require the involvement of everyone in the school, from the students, administrators, teachers, counselors, and so on.  The school environment should be able to promote expectations that all students can succeed.  There should be policies and programs to meet the needs of students and the staff must support these environments.  Every child’s social-emotional development relate to the change that occur in a person’s feeling, ability to handle feelings and situations, and moral ideas; cognitive development is associated with the changes in a person’s reasoning and physical development is characterized by patterns of physical growth and maturation.

I-1.9—To advocate for and ensure that all children, including those with special needs, have access to the support services needed to be successful.

I am obligated to this ideal,  because if both the family and the teacher feel there is a potential problem, the task is to help identify it and secure the services needed.  A teacher’s role is to observe the child and provide the necessary current information, to support the family through their concern, to help them find appropriate resources (social services agencies, public health office and private & public schools) to assist with future placement for child care, and to be available for consultation with others who are working in the best interest of the child.  We all should be effective in helping families with special kid’s secure proper referrals and treatment.  American with Disabilities Act which was passed in 1990 made it unlawful to discriminate against people with disabilities and requires that people with disabilities have equal access to public and private services, and also reasonable accommodations.

I-2.3—To welcome all family members and encourage them to participate in the program. 

It is my responsibility for families to have a unique contribution to make in the child’s schooling.  A family has different knowledge about the child from what the teacher has.  They know the child’s history:  physical, medical, social, and intellectual.  The family should know the child as a member of a family and the role that child plays in the total family group, the extended family, and the community.  For example: the family already knows what makes their children happy or sad or how they react to changes in routines, but as a teacher, we have to learn these things.  We are only just beginning to discover what the families already know.  Teachers can support families in their roles as teachers of their children by: (1) keeping them informed about each stage of the child’s development (2) showing them how to encourage language and thinking skills and (3) educating them to children’s social needs at any give age.  Let’s remember that a family-centered approach to school relationships supports the growth of the family as well as the child.

Reference

NAEYC. (2005, April). Code of Ethical Conduct and Statement of Commitment. Retrieved on June 10, 2012 from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/PSETH05.pdf