Doing Right Thing A SIX-PART EXPLORATION OF ETHICS Classroomthe Lesson Plans Designed for Public & Private Schools 1. The Basis for Your Ethics 2. Does Might Make Right? The Need for Ethical Foundations 3. If We Know What Is Right, Can We Do It? 4. Being Human — Ethics and Medical Decisions 5. Ethics and Success at Work 6. Ethics, Civics, and Gratitude A Project of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview and Gateways to Better Education Gateways Doing Right Thing A SIX-PARTthe EXPLORATION OF ETHICS Introduction The United States is facing a serious crisis of ethics. Junior Achievement found similarly disturbing re- Perhaps the most obvious examples can be seen in the sults from a national sample of 750 teens comprising problems of corporate greed and unethical conduct on 375 males and 375 females 2 to 7 years of age. In its Wall Street. However, ethical problems permeate every report on Teens’ Ethical Readiness for the Workforce: area of life, including government, education, charities, Eighty percent of teens either somewhat or strongly agree and personal relationships. that they are prepared to make ethical business decisions According to the Josephson Institute of Ethics 200 when they join the workforce, yet more than a third (38 survey of 43,000 young people, 92 percent of students percent) think that you have to break the rules at school to were satisfied with their personal ethics and character. succeed. However: Nearly half (49 percent) of those who say they are ethically prepared believe that lying to parents and guardians is ac- While 89 percent of students believe that being a good per- ceptable, and 6 percent have done so in the past year.3 son is more important than being rich, almost one in three boys and one in four girls admitted stealing from a store Helping Young People Live Ethical Lives within the past year. Moreover, 2 percent admitted they stole something from a parent or other relative, and 8 per- Determining what ought to be and building a con- cent admitted stealing from a friend. sensus around setting some ethical standards becomes essential for a healthy society. The lesson plans that fol- On lying, more than two in five said they sometimes lie to save money (48 percent of males and 35 percent of fe- low are designed to adapt the video series, Doing the males). While 92 percent of students believe their parents Right Thing, for classroom use. want them to do the right thing, more than eight in ten con- The lesson plans break the videos into bite-sized fessed they lied to a parent about something significant. segments with worksheets and handouts so you can Rampant cheating in school continues. A majority of students use as much or as little as you’d like depending on the (59 percent) admitted cheating on a test during the last year, amount of time you have. Each session includes a set of with 34 percent doing it more than two times. One in three vocabulary words related to ethics. The handouts and admitted they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment. worksheets will challenge students to contemplate the topic of ethics and apply it to their own lives. In its 2008 report on the relationship between un- ethical behavior in school and unethical behavior as Cross-Curricular Application adults, the Josephson Institute of Ethics reported: The topic of ethics can apply across the curriculum. Regardless of current age, people who cheated on exams in It relates to Civics/Government, Language Arts (as in, high school two or more times are considerably more likely the motives and actions of characters in novels), His- to be dishonest later in life. Compared to those who never tory, Economics, Current Affairs, Science (as in, ethi- cheated, high school cheaters are: cal research), Sociology, and Health (as in, our relation- ships with others). Three times more likely to lie to a customer (20% vs. 6%) or inflate an insurance claim (6% vs. 2%) and more than twice as likely to inflate an expense claim (0% vs. 4%). Twice as likely to lie to or deceive their boss (20% vs. 0%) or lie about their address to get a child into a better school . Josephson Institute of Ethics, www.josephsoninstitute.org (29% vs. 5%) and one-and-a-half times more likely to lie 2. Ibid. to spouse or significant other (35% vs. 22%) or cheat on 3. Teens’ Ethical Readiness for the Workforce Studied in New Poll, taxes (8% vs. 3%).2 February 11, 2009; www.ja.org. When the Topic of Religion Enters the Discussion The subject of ethics addresses your students’ Department of Education’s guidelines on students’ deepest values and those are often rooted in their religious liberties, your students have the right to religious upbringing. Doing the Right Thing is freely express themselves regarding their personal unique in that it causes students to think about their beliefs.2 However, as moderator of a class discussion foundational values as well as functional values. It on this topic, you should emphasize that every student emphasizes the “why” not just the “what.” be respectful regarding their classmates’ comments. A panel of thirty-three leading children’s doctors, No student should be made to feel excluded for neuroscientists, research scholars and youth service expressing belief or disbelief. professionals, in conjunction with the Institute Another practical way to address religious topics for American Values, Dartmouth Medical School is by attributing faith statements to their source. For and the YMCA USA, drew upon a large body of instance, when addressing religious motivations research examining how to help students avoid at- expressed in the civil rights movement, you can risk behavior. In its report Hardwired to Connect, the attribute them to their source. You might say, “Martin panel stated: Luther King said his faith was the foundation for his fight for justice when he wrote...” You, as the teacher, “Denying or ignoring the spiritual needs of adolescents are not saying that faith should be the foundation for may end up creating a void in their lives that either justice; you are explaining that Martin Luther King devolves into depression or is filled by other forms of questing and challenge, such as drinking, unbridled con- said this. sumerism, petty crime, sexual precocity, or flirtations with violence.” They went on to conclude: “We recommend that youth-serving organizations purposively seek to promote the moral and spiritual development of children, recognizing that children’s moral and spiritual needs are as genuine, and as integral to their personhood, as their physical and intellectual needs... ...finding new ways to strengthen, and not ignore or stunt, children’s moral and spiritual selves may be the single most important challenge facing youth service professionals and youth-serving organizations.” As a public school educator, it is important to create an environment that is faith-friendly and allows students to feel comfortable expressing their religious values as they relate to their ethical decisions. As a teacher, you can acknowledge and affirm a student’s beliefs without endorsing it. For instance, when a student shares that a particular ethical decision is rooted in her religious faith, you can acknowledge and affirm her statement without endorsing it by using statements such as: “Thank you for explaining that,” or “That’s really interesting,” or “I can see how that . Hardwired to Connect, 2003, www.americanvalues.org belief shapes your decision on that topic.” 2. Guidance on Constitutionally Protected Prayer in Public It is important to allow students to freely express Elementary and Secondary Schools, February 7, 2003 (www.ed.gov) their religious values in class. According to the U.S. 2 Doing Right Thing A SIX-PARTthe EXPLORATION OF ETHICS Session 1—The Basis for Your Ethics OVERVIEW In this lesson, students will look at how ethics and values are formed in the individual and soci- ety as a whole. (Note: the video segments in this lesson start eleven minutes into the video. The first eleven minutes of the video deals with the technicalities of the economic crisis of 2008.) Many in our society today reject the idea that ethics are something that is either objective or universal. Instead, many have embraced the idea of moral and ethical relativism. This view holds that ethics are not based on transcendent truths, but are instead dependent on the situation and the people involved. Since there is no objective standard of right and wrong, all cultures are equal, all individual values are valid, and we cannot judge the choices other people make. Relativism is a common view of ethics in many influential circles today, including business schools, academia in general, medical research labs, law schools, and halls of government. In our pluralistic world, it seems to many to be the only option. The problem is, it doesn’t work. First, it is obvious that ethical failures occur. The outrage against unethical Wall Street executives is ample evidence that we recognize wrongdoing. Yet if there is no objective ethical standard by which we can measure people’s behavior, how can we even talk about unethical actions? There is no basis for judging anyone’s actions as wrong or inappropriate. At best, we can only say they are illegal. This leads to the second problem. In a world that believes in relativism, when obvious ethical lapses occur, the only recourse is laws and government regulation. Yet regulations have loop- holes and boundaries, whether by accident or design. No matter how carefully crafted regulations are, unethical people will find a way around the letter of the law and thus will not be restrained by themselves.