CASE ANALYSIS 1 (UNIT 1 PART 1)

ASSESSING MORAL GROUND/COMPASS

NEWLY HIRED TEACHER

A newly hired teacher taught Ethics which had mostly freshmen and some older students who
needed credits to graduate. At the end of that first semester, a student approached the teacher and
asked whether he could change his grade from a 2.0, which he earned, to 1.25 because he was
going to medical school the following semester. His major reason was that a 2.0 on his transcript
would make that school take back his admission. He said that his life would be ruined if such taking
back happened. The teacher felt bad for the student and gave him a grade he didn’t earn and
deserved so he could go to medical school. After 2 years, the medical student successfully completed
school, became a doctor, and opened up a clinic in a poor neighborhood and helped many people in
need. He thanked the teacher for helping him out all those years ago.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1.In your own moral judgment, did the teacher do the right thing ?Explain your judgment.
No. Teachers have the greatest obligation to live with dignity. In this case scenario, the
teacher’s action is against the code of ethics for professional teachers. The following are being
violated:
Article V: The Teachers and the Profession
Section 1. Teachers shall, at all times, be imbued with the spirit of professional loyalty
Section 5. It shall be the responsibility of every teacher to seek correctives for what
may appear to be an unprofessional and unethical conduct of any associate.

Article VI: The Teacher and Higher Authorities in the Profession

Section 1. Every teacher shall make it his duty to make an honest effort to understand
and support the legitimate policies of the school and the administration regardless of
personal feeling or private opinion and shall faithfully carry them out.

Article VIII: The Teachers and Learners

Section 4. A teacher shall not accept favors or gifts from learners, their parents or
others on their behalf in exchange for requested concessions, especially if undeserved.

This proves that the action of the teacher is unacceptable. Regardless of what will be the
outcome, the action is proven to be wrong.

2. If not, what do you think was supposed to be the right, just and responsible action that the teacher
would take? Justify such proposed action.
The teacher should not change the grade of the student. The grades should remain on what it
is because it is what the students work for. Students are always at a crossroad of choices in
doing something, if they fail to study, they are ready to get lower marks. Integrity is connected
with notions of wholeness and completeness of human existing.
 STARTER QUOTATION

EDUCATION IS NOT THE LEARNING OF FACTS, BUT THE TRAINING OF THE MIND TO THINK
(ALBERT EINSTEIN,1897-1995)

Discussion Questions:

1.What constitutes learning of facts and information?

Everyday has always a lot to offer in our lives, we get to gather information and learn from it.
But it cannot stand alone, as a learner we should embody attributes to effectively have it. We should
work on calibrating our minds to accept it beyond what it is, to assess and judge hard; information can
be found everywhere, but it does not guarantee its factuality. Critical thinking is essential in order to
learn facts and information because it will drive us to reach our goal for factual and relevant
information. Above all, these facts and information will be all wasted, if it is used in an appropriate
manner. We have the autonomy to be catalysts for change through what we have learned.

2.What benefits and advantages can we get?

It doesn't only allow us to learn facts and information, but it exercises and strengthens our
minds to think and do more. It teaches the learners to learn beyond what is written or discussed
because it allows them to think and create limitless ideas on it. We should not be bounded and of
course be blinded in taking information because we always have a choice to critically think.

3. What is the difference between memorizing and analyzing concepts?

These two concepts are clearly at both edges of a line. It has a distinct difference, memorizing
is something that is an isolated information that we bank in our minds. Analyzing is making an effort
to understand a certain concept. Analyzing is a way deeper skill than memorizing as it leads to critical
thinking to have insights or ideas rather than absorbing information through retention that doesn't lead
to any thinking.

4.What is critical thinking and what are some attitudes of a critical thinker?

Critical thinking is a skill-ability to think rationally and to actively conceptualize, analyze, and
evaluate the given information that will lead on a reasoned judgment to accept that information or
debunk it. A critical thinker embodies:

1. Critical reader- who reads beyond the line

2. Fair mindedness- who sees both side of the story without any biases
3. Decisive- who thinks carefully before deciding efficiently
4. Independent- who have self stand to choose what is reasonable
 THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

You and your family (only daughter and loving wife) were held captive by a group of NPA
rebels. They demanded the release of high value NPA leaders in exchange for the release of
your group. But the government side, did not yield to their demand. You were then forced at
gunpoint to execute only one member of your family. Part of the condition is that you are not
supposed to shoot yourself. If you refuse to shoot one member, the three of you will be
executed.

QUESTIONS

1.Whom are you going to shoot (wife or daughter)?

- The Wife

2.Justify your choice of moral decision.

- For any reason, killing will diminish the whole idea of having a grounded morality when you
perform it. Set aside from that, humans may always face a dilemma to choose between
something that is difficult to weigh. In this scenario, killing the wife or a daughter is both evil in
equal sense, but it should be guided, which is a lesser evil act and morally judged. We can
consider utilitarianism, which is to choose the lesser affected of the circumstances po rather
than not shooting that will lead to more people being affected. I chose to shoot my wife
because I know that she will also choose to save our daughter. Parents cannot afford to lose
their child because it's their life, it's their purpose, why they are continuously striving, and their
unique precious gems. I will choose for my daughter to live because she has so much to offer
to the world. Me and my wife already enjoyed our existence, we got to experience more than a
decade in this world. We can’t afford to take that away from our daughter, she has much to
explore and know more about the things in this world.

Above all, what we learn po, this covers now the human actions. And in our daily lives our knowledge
and choice of action will have a domino effect towards our surroundings. It will satisfy our existence
po on how to create rightness and of course an inevitable wrongness

If knowledge cannot create impacts it is still not enough to be called knowledge because knowledge
should have different means of medium where we can apply it .

Takeaway of the lessons.

Moral Agent refers to the doer of action where the decision will come from po, and as a human we
have the autonomy within ourselves, because we are the most powerful beings in the world as we
can discern right from wrong and we are given a lot of opportunities. We can turn our micro action to
a macro impact towards ourselves and to people that surround us. That’s why the moral agent should
possess self-awareness and sense of accountability in every of their actions as these could fall to
different repercussions. We must put ourselves in our every choice. Always remember that everything
in our lives is the outcome of our choices. Humans are the leaders of their own lives. It's still in our
hands to make decisions that either will help us or destroy us.