Many people I know do not know the difference between ethics and morals. They believe the two are interchangeable but they aren't. The lines continue to blur, especially when related to many political topics, but if most people would take a philosophy class and study both, they might recognize the difference.
According to dictionary.com, "While they're closely related concepts, morals refer mainly to guiding principles, and ethics refer to specific rules and actions, or behaviors. A moral precept is an idea or opinion that's driven by a desire to be good. An ethical code is a set of rules that defines allowable actions or correct behavior."
I think about things like this when trying to figure out the students I am teaching. Because I try to help them discover the difference, I have learned their brains are still developing and they sometimes see the world through a different lens than the one I am looking through.
When I first began teaching, because of my journalism background, I was the advisor to not only the newspaper, but the yearbook as well.
Middle school is such a hard time for most students. They change on a daily basis and keeping up is not the easiest in the world to do. The differences in producing a yearbook or a newspaper can be great and it is helping the students realize the differences. My yearbook students all loved producing the yearbook and did a great job, but they did not like writing anything. They were much more about photos and layouts and cutline and what the book would look like.
Superlatives have always been a large part of a school. Everyone wanted to be voted something. Most Photogenic, Cutest Couple, Funniest Couple and you get the idea. This particular year my students were very excited to work on superlatives. I was not. Superlatives are a popularity contest in my opinion. They don't mean anything and I was not looking forward to trying to count numbers but it had always been, so I organized the students to begin counting. Now for full disclosure, I did win a superlative in 7th grade: Most Likely to Succeed. I have no idea who voted for me; I was not popular in junior high school, and I was shocked when I was called up during the awards ceremony.
My school did not handle it this way. Only 8th graders were to be picked and so it began. The votes came in like crazy and we had clear winners. That is, until I began looking closely at the sheets which the students voted on. I found a pile in the garbage can, all with the same names.
The editor of the yearbook was a beautiful young woman and she was in charge of having the votes counted. When I questioned her about the ballots in the trash, she was very nonchalant in saying she felt the person on those ballots had won too much and she thought the person who had placed second should be first. This happened in several categories. Her thought was because these particular students had already placed at the top in several categories, she didn't think it would be fair for them to win any more.
Even after explaining the ethics of what she had done; explaining that the students chose who they wanted to represent them, not her; she still wanted to argue. She wanted to argue to the point that she was willing to quit the yearbook because of it. It took not only me, the yearbook representative and almost the whole class, including the newspaper staff, to convince her she was wrong.
To the dismay of every parent that might have had a child win a superlative, the following year I opted to discontinue superlatives. I caught a lot of flack for that. I had a lot of angry parents but it did not deter me and I was glad I made that decision.
I hope we all can understand the difference between ethics and morals and why we need our children to understand the same. Remember, actions speak louder than words.
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