Task 5b: Ethics within the workplace

After completing task 5a and coming to find out what the “actual” ethical policies were at the school I am working at, I thought it would have been much easier to get hold of! Obviously the main issue within a school would be ‘safeguarding’ and for this, the information provided was plentiful with lots of “what to do if such and such happens” and the correct procedures you must follow. The more I was looking at the information however, the more I felt I needed to know about what was meant by the term ‘safeguarding’. It is a word used frequently when discussing ethics in a school environment yet one I feel is used without much thought behind it. I decided to google it and got this definition from the website: http://www.safenetwork.org.uk/getting_started/Pages/Why_does_safeguarding_matter.aspx

What is safeguarding?

It might be difficult to accept, but every child can be hurt, put at risk of harm or abused, regardless of their age, gender, religion or ethnicity. 

Safeguarding legislation and government guidance says that safeguarding means:

protecting children from maltreatment

preventing impairment of children’s health or development ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care.

taking action to enable all children and young people to have the best outcome

and

“the action we take to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm - is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone who comes into contact with children and families has a role to play.” 

Working together to safeguard children (HM Government 2013) 

In addition to this, there is a government website https://www.gov.uk/childrens-services/safeguarding-children which has over 30 different links to different to multiple types of information all to do with safeguarding which just illustrates how much data is out there and how important an issue child safety is.

Anyway, back to the workplace and I still could not get hold of a code of conduct. I asked one person who said they would need to ask another.On the website however, they did have a list of ‘policies’ but these were all aimed at the parents/pupils and not for the staff. This is a form of ethical considerations which I did not think about that as I had only looked at things from my point of view (staff). This just highlights that a document which every workplace must have, in any industry, is done just to “tick a box” and the information is not to hand for every employee. Obviously, this statement is only based on one incident so after making it, I cannot speak for every workplace as that may not be the case. 

Task 5a: Ethical Considerations

When I first started thinking about this task I felt like I could think of a large number of ethical values within my workplace. However when it came down to putting pen to paper, I found it harder than originally thought. 

I wrote my ideas out in list form as I felt this would lay out my ideas in a clear and 

informative manner.

• Safeguarding

• Data Protection

• Staff/Placement CRB check

• No physical contact with children

• Appropriate Language

• Wear suitable clothing/Be clean and presentable

• Equal opportunity/No discrimination (for both teachers and pupils)

• Discretion/Confidentiality - act in a professional manner

• Health and safety policies

• Follow the policies the school has - job contract/verbal agreement 

All the above ideas were thinking about being in a school environment. However, you must also consider ethics out side the workplace that my affect you/have consequences within the workplace:

• Use of social media sites

• Inappropriate/reckless behavior

As shown in my initial list, the immediate point that came to mind when thinking about ‘ethics’ within a school/teaching environment, was safeguarding. It is essential that a child must feel in a safe environment and as a teacher you must be aware of changes that may indicate something is wrong. As well as a role model, you also need to be someone that a pupil can trust. 

As it stands at the moment, my inquiry does not involve focus groups or similar activities involving the pupils (as I aware some people maybe doing something along these lines) however, if it was, the idea of safe guarding is something I would need to take into consideration. 

Task 4

After speaking to another professional who was in the teaching field, I developed my questions making them better and also ruling out some of the ideas where I felt there would not be much room to carry out a strong inquiry.

The question I liked most was number 10 :

“Some students who are less able academically can excel in these creative subjects. Why is this? And can doing these subjects benefit them in the academic subjects?”

It was decided that the way I’d written it was biased as I had based the question with a particular student in mind. In order for my inquiry to be successful I will need to take into consideration the ethics behind questions asked and also take into account safeguarding of children and data protection. I re-wrote the question now making it what I feel is “more inquiry friendly”:

“In what ways do pupils benefit from creative subjects within school and can these benefits be transferred to their learning in other subjects?”

I then brought this question up for  discussion at the last campus session where Alan helped me develop the ideas that this question provoked. I have put these ideas onto a spider diagram (below) which I found really helpful as I could see everything down on paper infront of me and it showed more clearly the links between different ideas.

I have posted this question onto my SIG group and am still waiting for comments and ideas from my peers but would welcome suggestions on here too!

In terms of the way I would carry out my research for this inquiry, I would take a humanities approach. 

Analytical, Critical and Speculative.

This is something Alan discussed at the last campus session and although I have not blogged about it myself, if you read Geri Masucci’s Blog, I feel that she has summed up well what was taught and discussed. In particular, the idea of 'positionality' and how your own positionality will potentially  affect your inquiry. 

Task 4a: Developing Lines of Inquiry

So I’m sat in Middlesex University waiting for the campus session to begin and Module 2 is now seeming even more real! I have been trying to tackle reader 4 but I’m thinking it’s going to take a few more reads yet until I fully understand! 

Being here this early would seem a good opportunity to post my questions up on here and after seeing that others have already uploaded theirs, I feel more confident!

As teaching is a career I would love to peruse upon completion of this degree, that is the subject area I decided to focus my questions on. I am also aware this is a career path many others on this course are looking into and therefore a good top to discuss!

1. What makes a good teacher?
2. Will my experience of professional training at a performing arts college help me more or less than than doing a dance degree at university when trying to persue a career in teaching?
3. Does being so young affect staff/students taking me seriously as a teacher?
4. How does teaching a creative subject such as dance/drama compare to teaching a  more academic subject?
5. How does my teaching style compare to a more experienced practitioner?
6. Will people people take me less seriously as a dancer for going straight into a teaching career as opposed to performing first?
7. In such creative subjects, how do you find a “happy medium” between creativity and discipline as a teacher?
8. As a teacher how do you encourage the students who are less willing to join in?
9. How do you determine the best route to take in order to achiever your teaching qualification?
10. Some students who are less able academically can excel in these creative subjects. Why is this? And can doing these subjects benefit them in the academic subjects?

Please feel free to comment and let me know your opinions!

Back to Reality!

So with the holiday season well and truly over it’s time to get back to work and start looking at Module 2. Despite sitting down with the intention of doing “uni work”, once again I ended up on Facebook and was horrified to come across this article about how every year, hundreds of Calderon dolphins, are killed for “fun” as a “right of passage” in the Denmark.

http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MjM5NDM0NTA2Mg%3D%3D&mid=10100142&idx=7&sn=2338d5d305296bc264ba02c8620c3c69&scene=4#rd

I quickly exited the site without thinking anymore of it other than how cruel it was and disgusted at the people who would participate in such activity.

It wasn’t until a few days later (when I was on Facebook again) that I came across this:

http://meganastamper.tumblr.com/post/74306785476/the-denmark-dolphin-slaughter

I feel this is a perfect example of how you cannot just accept the first source of information you read as the truth and shows the importance of making a deeper inquiry.

As it states in Reader 4, module 2 introduces you to, “a process of inquiry through which you will be able to further investigate, explore, evaluate and understand your professional practice.” I thought that this was just a small (not entirely relevant) example of what we are about to develop as we begin to put together ideas for our own professional inquiry’s.

Task 3b: Theories Relating to Networking

“Professional Networks and their effective engagement could produce benefits for you personally and the things that matter to you” (Reader 3, 2013).

Within the work place, especially in the performing arts, it would almost seem it’s part of one’s instinct to ‘get to the top’ no matter what that takes. ‘Co-operation’ and ‘Affiliation’ are two different networking theories exploring how different people will take what they want from a given situation to get where they want to be. 

Co-operation

When  think about ‘co-operation’ and how I use it within daily life, and particularly my working life, I think about getting on with people (whether I like it or not). In most cases, it is just something you have to do and without yet thinking about ‘game theory’ you will co-operate to achieve something. For example, working in a dance company, each member would work together as a team to put on the best performance possible. Robert Axelrod is an influential researcher in this field who identified the benefits of “co-operating fully, until you reach a point of maximum benefit, and then defect” (Reader 3, 2013). A representation  of this can be seen in “Prisoners Dilemma” which involves two contestants who each must make a choice without knowing what the other will do. From this game theory, Axelrod inferred, “The temptation is to defect. But, the dilemma is that if both defect, both do worse than if both had co-operated.” (Axelrod, 1984). From this, I came to the conclusion, that whilst eventually, one would defect in order to gain the most one can, equally, it pays to cooperate and consequently, the longer you co-operate, the more you can achieve. Arguably, co-operating for too long, can leave you worse off if the opponent defects before you. Within the theory, Axelrod also points out that a “tit-for-tat” pattern is created and we should “take advantage of networks for our own benefit and that of the wider network”. (Axelrod, 1984, p. xi-xiv).

It could be argued that the usefulness of the actual game, on the other hand, could be that this model is fundamentally flawed. It is based on a scientific scale, few social situations could be modeled accurately by a single transaction, and as the reader states, it’s “a very simple model”.

When reading through other blogs posted about this task, one opinion I saw was that Axelrod’s game theory, to them, was just ‘using’ someone. I could relate to this as I thought this too at first, however, I would challenge this by saying; it is very rare that a person will give without gaining something themselves. For example, within my workplace, I will co-operate because I gaining from the experience to support my PGCE application yet at the same time, the department is gaining from me, new choreography that the students have used for their assessment. I believe, in order for co-operation to work, all persons involved should be getting something out of it and benefit from it, whether that be for themselves or someone else. There may be situations, for example, in auditions, where people follow Axelrod’s theory and co-operate up to a certain point, and then defect.

Affiliation

Although I can see it sharing similarities with the traits of ‘co-operation’, in terms of ‘getting on’, when I think of ‘affiliation’ I associate it with friendships you make and this theory would seem a lot more intimate than that of co-operation. As humans, it is in our nature “to form close relationships” (Crisp and Turner, 2007). Everyone has affiliations and some rely on them more heavily than others, which links to the affiliation theory of ‘homeostasis’ where we each seek to balance our affiliations to a preferred level (O’Connor and Rosenblood, 1996). In other words, finding a balance of associations which is right for you at a particular time. Within this concept comes the idea of ‘having friends in the right places’, and is all part of professional networking. 

Another key aspect of ‘affiliations’ is trust. Those you affiliate with, both professionally and socially, are people you trust and trust information and knowledge they pass onto you. With this also comes the risk of putting trust in the wrong person and with that, the ethics behind that information getting leaked. 

References:

The Evolution of Co-operation, (Axelrod, R, 1984)

Essential Social Psychology (2nd ed), (Crisp, Richard J. and Turner, Rhiannon N, 2007)

Task 3c: Sources of Information

There are many different sources and networks that we all use both professionally as well as socially. All networks are appropriate and valued for different reasons but there are some I would tend to turn to more frequently.

Google

Whether it be for BAPP, a new teaching idea or even what time a shop opened, I would most commonly just type it into google. Most of the time it will provide me with the information I was looking for, however, with it offering thousands of options, there is always that question of the authenticity of the site you on are on and the accuracy of the information it is offering. This is why it is always a good idea to to cross-check the information with another source.

YouTube

To me this is a sort of “visual google” and something on which I rely heavily on both inside and out of the teaching environment. YouTube is perfect for giving me inspiration when choreographing, but also, showing the students performances of different dance styles. For example, the other week we were studying the jazz style of, ‘Fosse’ so I used YouTube to show them a clip of professional fosse dances. While this visual aid is highly beneficial would always watch the video before showing it to the class as ‘YouTube’ is a site where anyone could upload anything so I like to check it is appropriate before showing it. Also, with a site like this available, especially in dance, it makes it very easy to just copy someone else’s work so another thing to be aware of.

Networking in the Workplace

The information I gain from other teachers and staff members, with whom I work with in the school, is invaluable to me. Being new to this profession, there is know better way to learn than from people who have years of experience in this field, in my opinion. Equally, I currently spend a lot of time with a girl who is undertaking her PGCE at the moment, so it’s very interesting to see what she is having to do, what her course entails, and also her opinion of it. One thing to bare in mind is that this information is entirely opinionated and possibly biased and so not necessarily ‘the truth’ about this profession. This idea of networking within the workplace is not something I had considered a ‘network’ until reading other people’s blogs (based on task 3a). It was only on completion of the task that I reflected and thought, why? I had just decided in my head that networking meant only connecting via online sites. Looking back this now seems silly but enhances the importance of sharing ideas.

BAPP

This links in nicely to the point I just made above. Whilst undergoing this course, I am forever flicking from blog to blog, reading what other people have written and from what angles they have approached the different tasks. On one hand, this is a good way of sharing ideas across a wider network (like I learnt in task 3a). As well as this, it would seem that many BAPP students are all hoping to go down the teaching route and this is another way in why the blogs useful because you find a lot of relevant feelings and ideas. Yet, on the other hand, something I often feel, is reading a task and feeling like I have done it wrong. I am aware that on a course such as this, there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, but I still find that it puts doubt in my mind of my ability. Although I sometimes get concerned with regards to the blogging, I find when everyone comes together for the BAPP campus sessions really helpful. Everyone sharing ideas and ‘bouncing’ off one another really helps me to develop own ideas.

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

I probably would not regard these as ‘important’ for me personally, however, I still wanted to discuss them because they are sites I use a lot and I am aware that for some people, they are relied on for a different source of information. I know on Facebook, there are groups such as, ‘The Hustle’ from which people can gain knowledge of upcoming auditions or events. I personally, do not tend to write status’ or ‘tweets’ or upload pictures very often and tend to go on them more because I am nosey. So while I can gain information about different people by doing a bit of “stalking” this is also a downfall of sites like these. They are not particularly private and you have to set any of these privacy settings yourself. This is why when I do post, I have to be very careful of what I put on. I think this is also especially relevant within the teaching profession because, let’s be honest, we have all typed in a teachers name on Facebook thinking it will be hilarious to see what their page is like..! For this reason, all my privacy setting are on on all my social networking sites.