Passion quilt: a meme for teachers.

More than a month ago William the Coroner tagged me. It is not just that I am slow; this meme is challenging!

Not mush, methodology.

i-5b2cf8b3ba9535773e6f140b7b9d1474-CaseStudyResponses.jpg

A surprising number of people seem to think being ethical amounts to not being an inherently evil person.

I am passionate about teaching my students that making ethical decisions involves moving beyond gut feelings and instincts. It means understanding how your decisions impact others, and considering the ways your interests and theirs intersect. It means thinking through possible impacts of the various choices available to you. It means understanding the obligations set up by our relations to others in personal and professional contexts.

But methodology for approaching ethical decision making can be taught. Practice in making ethical decisions makes it easier to make better decisions. And making these decisions in conversation with other people who may have different perspectives (rather than just following a gut feeling) forces us to work out our reasons for preferring one course of action to the alternatives.

THE RULES:
Post a picture or make/take/create your own that captures what YOU are most passionate for students to learn about.

Give your picture a short title.

Title your blog post "Meme: Passion Quilt." [Or words to that effect -- neither William the Coroner nor I used precisely this title.]

Link back to this blog entry.

Include links to 5 (or more) educators.

I will tag:

Julie
Jane
P.D.
Steve
PhysioProf
Chad
PZ

(plus any other teaching folk who want to play)

More like this

People sometimes worry that throwing ethics coursework at scientists-in-training is not such a great strategy for training them to be ethical scientists. (I've explored worries of this sort myself.) For one thing, at many schools the existing coursework may be a fairly broad "moral issues" course…
It's one of those tired cliches: Bush makes decisions with his irrational "gut instincts," instead of relying on "careful analysis". Paul Krugman, in today's Times, end his columns by repeating this cliche: Luckily, we've got good leadership for the coming storm: the White House is occupied by a…
PZ tagged me with a teaching meme. The question is "Why do you teach and why is academic freedom critical to that effort?" Unlike PZ, I knew I had a thing for teaching long before I had a clue what discipline I would end up pursuing. (My first official paycheck for a teaching gig was issued in…
I have sinned. While I was in Philadelphia, I was supposed to attend the Drinking Skeptically event on Thursday evening, and I was honestly looking forward to it…but I went to dinner with Michael Weisberg, Janet Browne, Rasmus Winther, John Beatty, Jane Maienschein, and a few others, and when I…

May I ask a question about the substance of your "passion?" (Really, a question, not a criticism.)

I'm interested in a resource explaining why "making ethical decisions involves moving beyond gut feelings and instincts."

By Jeff Chamberlain (not verified) on 07 May 2008 #permalink