Learning through life and the ethics of teaching: a story told in fifteen voices

ABSTRACT

Attempting to connect theoretical arguments for the primacy of ethics in teachers’ practice to real life experience we interviewed fifteen teachers from Greece and Iceland.

The stories they told were in accord with a broadly Aristotelian notion of moral development. They saw their moral education as process that began early in life and continued through years of work, where the latter stages required opportunities to engage in deliberations about human affairs.

Our results suggest that, when thinking about the moral education of teachers, we should focus not only on preservice education but also on lifelong professional development.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher education
• teacher professionalism
• moral education
• practical wisdom
• deliberation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).