Joanna Madalinska-Michalak

University of Warsaw

The teaching profession is interdependent with the highest ethical standards

Although the teaching profession has much in common with the professions of so-
called public trust, it also differs significantly from these professions. The differences with
professions such as dentists or bridge and road engineers are fundamental. In the case of the
latter professions, their ethical rules are quite clear. The observance of ethical rules almost
coincides with the observance of professional rules, which are technical rather than ethical in
nature. A road and bridge engineer is supposed to follow technical requirements and a dentist
is supposed to use the latest available dental techniques without being dishonest to either the
patient or his insurer. In the case of the teaching profession, however, things are quite
different. Of course, one can say about a teacher of mathematics that his or her work boils
down to providing students with the best possible knowledge of: numbers, sets, functions,
equations and inequalities, sequences, geometrical figures and measurement, elements of
calculus of probability and statistics, mathematical analysis and applications of mathematics
in various areas of life, i.e. following the "technical" rules that make it possible to introduce
students most effectively to the arcana of mathematics. But that is not all. After all, one can
explore logical sequences of numbers or use them to prove laws of physics that are abstract to
many, but one can also bring these complex thought processes to students in a
friendly/attractive way. The teaching profession, however, is not reduced to following such
'technical' rules. Even if the mathematics teacher quoted here may perceive his profession as
governed only by these "technical" rules, he may also - in certain political or social
circumstances - find himself in a situation in which his "technical" rules, the rules of the art of
teaching mathematics, clash with the rules of conduct imposed on him by a certain, also
imposed on him, normative way of seeing the world. The simplest illustration here may be the
elimination of the names of mathematicians of Jewish origin from education, imposed on
maths teachers during the times of National Socialism, or forcing them to disavow - following
Ludwik Bieberbach, the propagator of "German mathematics" - modern axiomatics and
formalism in mathematics as "dehumanized mathematics". Another example from another
subject area could be the forcing of a biology teacher - in Stalinist times - to present as
scientific achievements the "achievements" of Trofim Lysenko. Admittedly, the quoted

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examples are examples of certain specific situations in which a teacher may experience this
collision between rules that may have appeared ethically neutral and the rules of worldview or
normative image of the world imposed by the "employer", which in the vast majority of cases
is the state in the modern world. The situations described here, however, serve as a
background for a general characterisation of the specificity of the teaching profession and the
sometimes impossible to remove collision between two normative or axiological orders, in
which the teacher - precisely because of the specificity of his profession - is situated. For a
teacher is not only a specialist in teaching mathematics, geography, physics and astronomy, or
chemistry. He is - at least in the case of public education (and a part of non-public education)
under the control of state authorities - a subject acting in the area of shaping the identity of the
educated and realising cultural reproduction, i.e. due to his position he is a performer of tasks
assigned to him by the state. The state, in turn, leaves the bulk of the tasks associated with
education and upbringing in its hands, so that it can shape the attitudes, goals or axiological
ideas of individuals and various communities within the state. The teacher is in a way an
exponent of the state (about which, of course, we can say that it is in turn an emanation of the
will of individuals united into the state - the question of the consequences of taking this
circumstance into account should be left aside at this point). At the same time, the teacher -
even in a totalitarian state - cannot be reduced to the role of this "exponent of the state".
However, the teacher - like every single person - has his own way of seeing the world
morally, his own moral consciousness, which does not have to coincide with the axiological
expectations of the current authorities, nor even with the normative order underlying the given
state.
To sum up: the specificity of the teaching profession consists, among other things, the
fact that the teacher is inevitably situated in two axiological-normative orders - one is the
order determined by the state (and the relevant legal and axiological regulations), and the
other order, with which the teacher identifies himself as a person, as an individual, as a person
maintaining his own identity, playing a certain social and professional role. The situation of
this double positioning is a situation of permanent potential conflict. However, when writing
about the legal and ethical foundations of the teaching profession, it is necessary to be aware
of this potential conflict. The existence of this conflict - potential, although sometimes
revealed - can be made visible by showing how different, even divergent, interpretations of
the same concepts expressing certain values or norms can be. This can be shown both on the
example of concepts that are used in the regulations on the teaching profession, i.e. in the

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regulations articulating the axiological framework of teacher behaviour set by the state, and
on the example of various forms of moral thinking of teachers.
The realisation of the teaching as a profession, i.e. the realisation of the "vocation
profession", requires the existence of high barriers to access to this profession, including not
only the requirement of an appropriate education, which should be demonstrated by students
of teaching studies, but also the requirement to have high qualifications to perform the tasks
assigned to the teaching profession, the requirement to constantly acquire specialist
knowledge and develop the necessary competences, and the requirement to represent the
highest ethical standards.
The teaching profession has an ethical dimension, the articulation of which, if we
really want to speak of this profession as a profession, requires a code regulating practice
within this profession. The interdependence of the teaching profession with the highest ethical
standards requires from its representatives the ability to reflect on the sense, role and nature of
the profession, and thus, in addition to "professional" preparation, a high degree of
specialisation. This requires preparing teachers as professionals to reflect on and discuss
principals and issues of a fundamental nature, and not just to consider the technical aspects of
their profession. A teacher who meets the highest ethical standards is certainly a highly
responsible teacher.