Ethical considerations within my workplace

I think the way we think about ethics and the way we portray them in life has a lot to do with; how and where we are brought up, how open minded we are and experience. My upbringing was not one of religion, I wasn't exposed to it at all and I was from a small town. My big move to a city at 16 was when I realised how different life was. I had no option but to open my eyes and change the way I looked at things. I felt a bit like a blank canvas that was able to form my own considerations but also a little uneducated in approaching certain situations.

Attending other dance classes was a massive eye opener for me. There was a student that didn't take off their cardigan for the entire ballet class, throughout the barre, centre work, allegro and all the way through to pointe work. Out of curiosity I asked why they made this choice, to which they politely explained that it was due to religious reasons they were making this choice. Things as simple as this I had never had to think about within a dance class. My perception of the situation was that they would be more comfortable without the extra layer, but the reality was far from my initial thoughts. After this I never really put much thought into differences of opinion and choice, not out of ignorance but just from not wanting to interfere. My honesty and fairness when decision making was neutral but knowledge was lacking. Whilst training as a dance teacher during my DDE's and also starting work at a school for SEND students, have been the biggest hurdles when considering ethical progression.

Working in a SEND school we have to account for a lot of ethical considerations that are often overlooked in day to day activities. My opinion of what these are evolve every day. We have lots of guidelines and procedures (codes of practice/regulations) in place for safeguarding not only the student but our selves in the work place that mould the way we carry out work related ethical framework. When I first started my job my first assumptions were that I would be given a list of things to think about and this would be very straight forward to apply to my job, how very wrong I was. Now that I have been working here for while my assumptions have changed to knowledge and evolved into forward thinking. Applying these guidelines to my lessons has become an active part of my day to day routine. The assumptions that I first made have had to evolve into questioning my daily routine to allow to see the bigger picture.

The easiest way for me to get these down onto paper was in bullet point form as there are so many to think about which interconnect into each-other.

• Appearance - approachable, openminded
• Communication - consider non-verbal students, english might not be their first language, learning other sign language, BSL
• Cooperation - Not forcing the students to do something that they don't want to do but actively encouraging them to participate whilst cooperating with the student
• Respect - We have service users that are vulnerable young adults so have the same freedom and choice as a person without a disability. Respecting their choice if they don't want to do an activity and finding something else to do
• Inclusion for all
• Respect for differences
• Accessibility to all activities - consideration of wheelchairs and disability
• Appropriate lesson plan to get them involved. Informing and shaping research to respect them as active participants
• Dignity - Upholding the rights and interests of the individual
• Privacy and confidentiality
• Autonomy of the individual to make decisions
• Disability awareness training

How many of the above considerations would you have written down? I overlooked a lot of these at the beginning of my teaching career and only developed some within the last year.

These ethical considerations do not completely change when thinking about teaching in the private dance school, they adapt to the different surrounding. We still have to think about matters such as; is English is first language, differences in cultural upbringing (showing legs, or wearing extra layers to allow for dignity), consideration of your choice of music is something that is often taken for granted and not thought of within dance schools.

These considerations that I am writing about are without review of documents or consulting with colleagues. I intend to discuss the same issues above with colleagues and research into literature which touches on similar topics and blog about my evolution of thought.