Ethics, Ricoeur and philosophy: ethical teacher workshops

Abstract

This work is about the ethics of education, and about philosophy as a discipline that can help us to help children look at ethics afresh. The study and practice of ethics is about morals and uncertainties and, as such, poses problems for the research community. The philosopher Ricoeur challenges research as only one way to find meaning in the world, and invites us to reconsider the value of textual analysis so that we can understand narrative as ethical and find guidance for how we wish to act. He combines explaining (positivist accuracy) and understanding (ethical conjecture). Ricoeur's philosophy suggests ways in which teachers and their pupils can learn to be actively involved in understanding how to be ethical, by using a variety of techniques, including narrative text. Story telling, this age‐old pedagogy, whereby both process and content have regard for the person, is complex and so important for teacher educators that it requires frequent refreshing. The dominant methodology here is that of applying philosophy to educational research in order to invite pupils to become researchers into their own ethical beliefs. The ideas are illustrated by the Hawkwood project, a TTA funded research programme for teacher educators on ethical teaching. In the long term it is hoped to develop these materials for student teachers, to broaden the idea of what it is to be an ethical teacher beyond the premises of the new Principles, Values and Practices Standards for ITE.

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Mary Plint, for permission to describe her research.