Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Jona Code of Ethics
Jona Code of Ethics
Finding the difference and parallelism between Professional Ethics for Teachers
and General Code of Ethics for Communicators seemed hard at first- it’s like separating a homogeneous
mixture. Milk, for example, even if you boil it and go through evaporation or cool it to condense, or filter
it -there’s just no way to break them down unlike, oil in a water where one settles, the other thing stays
up and so you can just easily pour it out. So, I thought, it may not be milk after all. What if it’s a paint?
Then, I could just dry it – water dries up and paint remains. Well, it worked that way.
If you take a look at Article V of the Teachers Code of Ethics, it talks about the
Teacher and the Teaching Community where Section 4 states that the teacher shall keep confidential
information concerning associates and the school, and shall not divulge to anyone documents which
has not been officially released or remove records from files without official permission while Article II
of Communicators Code of Ethics says , I shall not violate confidential information on material given
me in the exercise of my work or profession. These two shall cross in the same path heading to the
danger zone and shall merit a corresponding penalty when committed. Why? Information, in both fields
are crucial since teachers and communicators are the primary instruments of literacy so, false
information is misinformation promoting stupidity and ignorance. Spreading unofficial news and
information is like spreading a disease and you are the carrier. You’re not supposed to be exposed
because you knew you can infect and can contaminate and can make others sick. In the same manner,
confidential information when divulge without permission may bring harm to the persons involved.
What’s the difference? The audience. For communicators, the medium is the one accessible for them-
through writing in newspapers, magazines, columns, etc. or television or radio where the target
audience is the general public while teachers are limited to students, colleagues, friends and family as
their target audience as to whom the confidential information will be transferred and transported in
class or conversation or discussion. It’s like telling a big news to the whole universe but communicators
are on wifi- news will spread fast because they cover everything in media while teachers are just using
free data.