Full transcript
0:05hello I'm Peter Bissell Ango Senior
0:08Director for professional development at
0:09the National Association for the
0:11education of young children and I'm
0:13joined today with by Stephanie Feeny
0:16Stephanie I'm really happy to be here in
0:20this conversation Peter thank you for
0:22asking me this gives me an opportunity
0:25to talk about my favorite subject which
0:28is professional ethics and early
0:29childhood education
0:31I was the co-author of the first na ey C
0:35code of ethical conduct which was
0:36approved in 1989 I've written two books
0:39for any eyz about professional ethics
0:42and quite a few articles over the years
0:47I've participated in the development of
0:50two supplements for the na ey C code of
0:53ethical conduct one for adult educators
0:56and one for program administrators and I
0:58have been involved in three revisions of
1:00the code that have been conducted since
1:031989
1:05wonderful wonderful so now you know
1:07Waikato Stephanie is sitting here with
1:09me well the reason that we're doing this
1:11is for two things one this is the 20th
1:14anniversary of the code so in honor of
1:16this anniversary we are having this
1:18dialogue and the other is that that this
1:21dialogue is a supplement to an article
1:23by Stephanie in in young children ethics
1:26in early care and education where do we
1:28come from and where are we going
1:30so first I'd like to talk about what the
1:33code is to na YC and the code is a
1:36position statement of NAU IC and na e YC
1:39develops and disseminates position
1:41statements for several reasons one is to
1:44take informed decisions on significant
1:46issues in the field issues that affect
1:49young children's development to promote
1:51broad-based dialogue on these issues and
1:54to promote this dialogue in a way that
1:56we can all speak with a common language
1:58practitioners researchers policymakers
2:00and and families and certainly the code
2:03does the code of ethical conduct does
2:06give us the opportunity to do that
2:08Stephanie mentioned some of the history
2:11of the code and while this is the 20th
2:14anniversary of the code work
2:15on ethical issues in early childhood
2:17education preceded that in the 1970s we
2:21had the work of Lillian cats and
2:23Evangeline Board and and others
2:25regarding ethical issues in working with
2:28young children so Stephanie can you tell
2:31us about that work and then what work
2:33followed that in which you were involved
2:35well low in and
2:37Evangeline wrote a wonderful and
2:39influential book called ethical behavior
2:42and early childhood education which was
2:44first published in 1978 and it was
2:47revised in 1991 I think it's still
2:49available and Lillian really laid out a
2:52very powerful rationale for why it would
2:55be important for early childhood
2:57educators to to have a code of ethical
2:59conduct I served on the na ey C
3:02governing board from 1980 to 1984 and at
3:06that time people were interested in
3:08Lillian's book so they had started
3:10saying we need a code somebody should
3:12write a code of ethics and I thought
3:14that sounded like a good idea I didn't
3:16know anything about it
3:18I took all the files I went home I went
3:21I don't know what I'm doing here I
3:22didn't like philosophy in college but I
3:24remembered a very interesting talk I had
3:28heard by a philosopher in my institution
3:30the University of Hawaii the
3:32philosophers professor Kenneth Kipnis
3:35he's a specialist in professional ethics
3:37and a very interesting man and I'll call
3:40him and so I called Ken and I said this
3:44National Association of early childhood
3:46educators has asked me to look into
3:47writing a code and he had a child in
3:50preschool and he had an ethical dilemma
3:52with depression also he was kind of
3:54interested he's a boy I know some things
3:57about doing that and I'll work with you
4:01and so we began a collaboration that
4:04still continues when I when I don't know
4:06what to do with a question now I still
4:09cook in the first thing we did after he
4:14kind of signed on and said well I'll
4:16work with your organization we put an
4:19article in young children in nineteen we
4:23have a list of those it was about 80 84
4:2685 and it was a survey and we
4:29said to our readership its ethics an
4:31issue for you should we be pursuing the
4:34development of a code and do you have
4:37any ethical issues we also got a lot of
4:41ethical issues and dilemmas and at one
4:44point Ken was looking through these
4:46things and he looked at me and he said
4:48Stephanie these people are in ethical
4:51pain so we have difficult issues we're
4:55dealing with so we got these issues and
4:58we we read them and we categorized them
5:01and we did a couple things we tried to
5:04figure out what are the categories that
5:06these issues fall into how do they
5:09organize themselves and it was really
5:11clear there were a lot of issues that
5:13had to do with children there were more
5:16issues that had to do with families
5:17we'll talk about one of those there were
5:20issues that had to do with colleagues
5:21and employers but sort of with other
5:24adults you work with and then there were
5:26a whole set of things that were kind of
5:28other agencies responsibility to
5:32community and society so those became
5:34the categories to four sections of the
5:36code then we looked at these issues that
5:40people sent us and we said there's some
5:42that keep coming up and so we took some
5:48of those issues and we wrote cases which
5:51we will we're going to do that today and
5:55then we went to groups all over the
5:57country we got a grant from the Wallace
5:59Alexander Gore bode foundation and we
6:02traveled around mostly Hawaii in
6:04California we said okay here's the
6:05situation
6:06what would the good early childhood
6:08educator do in this situation and we
6:10started to get real consensus about the
6:13things we should do the other thing that
6:16we did that that was very interesting
6:18and very fun to do was to start to look
6:23at our core values because a code of
6:25ethics is based on the core values of a
6:29profession and so we said to people what
6:33do we really believe in what are our
6:34values and that was wonderful because we
6:36had so much consensus we didn't always
6:39agree on the words but we knew what we
6:41believed in and that's my favorite
6:43about this code yeah was identifying
6:45what are the things we care about as a
6:48group of people who weren't with young
6:49children and then through that process
6:51you were able to develop the first draft
6:53of the code we did and take that around
6:56the country that was part of the 5-year
6:58process and in getting buy-in across the
7:01exactly so first we looked at we looked
7:03at core values we looked at cases we
7:06looked at codes from other professional
7:08organizations we talked to philosophers
7:10we had a couple philosophy consultants
7:12who really made sure that what we were
7:13doing was consistent with with the
7:15integrity of the philosophy of ethics
7:18and then we drafted a code and some were
7:22in early in that process in a EYC
7:25created an Ethics Commission that
7:28oversaw this work and that met regularly
7:30and advised those of us who were
7:33actually kind of doing the staff work on
7:35it and it wasn't a staff work we were we
7:37were volunteers and so we had that group
7:42to guide us and then we would write
7:45something up and we'd take it out on the
7:48road we take it to workshops we'd put it
7:50in the journal eventually we put drafts
7:52in the journal we got comments we put
7:54cases in the journal so what we really
7:56loved about this process was that it it
7:59was a participatory process this is our
8:02code right we didn't write it for anyone
8:06we went to our members to the people who
8:10care about kids and we said what would
8:12be the right thing for us to do in these
8:14situation what would the morality of
8:17early childhood education look like of
8:19the ethics so we've written the code
8:21with the field the governing board
8:23approved that first code in 1989 and at
8:27that time the board stated that every
8:31five years the code would be reviewed by
8:33the board and then it would be
8:35determined do we need to update the code
8:37we need to reaffirm the code or do we
8:40need to revise the code so over the
8:42since since 1989 the code has been
8:46reviewed and revised and reaffirmed we
8:50have had new additions of the code
8:541992-1997 and then the most recent code
8:56revised in 2005 and then at each time we
9:00followed the same process we've gotten
9:02input from the field on what revisions
9:05they feel that we need to put into the
9:07code we develop drafts now that we do
9:09have the internet we can we put a there
9:11easier we get it out to everybody much
9:13more quickly but we still do the
9:15face-to-face and I've been involved more
9:18recently and working with Stephanie and
9:19Nancy Freeman and other leaders in
9:22ethics in our field in getting input
9:25from the field and so that's the process
9:27that we we've continued I'd like to just
9:30make make a comment about because we
9:33were talking about core values right and
9:35when we did the core values they're
9:36right in the front of the code when we
9:38did the core values in 1989 and we did
9:41the first two revisions
9:43there was no changes everybody said
9:45that's right those are the right values
9:47in the third edition we added one core
9:49value so in 2005 we added the value
9:53respect diversity and children families
9:55and colleagues