TEACHING AND LEARNING

Teaching implies taking some kind of actions to assist someone to learn something. Ask anyone who has graduated from an education degree programme and he or she will readily tell you that learning really means changing some kind of behaviour, whether that behaviour is the ability to solve math equations or make moral decisions. Thus, whereas we may be able to teach ethics or moral reasoning, unless something within the student changes, it clearly has not been learnt. Indeed, anyone charged with teaching ethics to PR students or practitioners must be careful to ensure that no one believes that the intended outcomes are ethical practitioners . There are no moral guarantees .

Authors Mary Ellen Waithe and David Ozar posed the following provocative question about the teaching of ethics: ˜Does an ethicist bear some responsibility for the conceptions that others form of the effects on a student of having completed a course in professional ethics? We believe so? ^[1]

Perhaps public relations faculties would have a different view of what they teach to their students about ethics if they were held accountable for the moral decisions made by their graduates. There is a significant difference between teaching ethics to general arts students ”philosophy majors, for example ”who simply have an interest in the subject and teaching ethical behaviour to students who will be expected to apply those concepts in real situations where there will be public scrutiny of their actions. Many ethicists have suggested that making morally defensible decisions is a part of the ethical burden of serving society (remember our code of ethics as a contract with society?).

Whereas most educators and practitioners alike believe that ethics should be taught to neophyte PR practitioners, as well as those with developing careers as continuing education, what is less clear is what kind of outcomes can be achieved. I believe that if we are able to motivate students to examine their own moral principles and values, and consider how these might have an impact on their decision-making, then we will at least have future practitioners who are morally aware and accountable for the decisions that they do make. But, I also believe that you can, indeed, teach old dogs new tricks.

Just as students can learn to identify when they are facing moral dilemmas and to examine their own ethics, so too can PR practitioners who have been working in the field for any length of time. For many current practitioners, there was no opportunity to learn about PR ethics in their basic education. The eclectic nature of the backgrounds of current practitioners is both a blessing and burden. It is a blessing in that backgrounds in English, journalism and the social sciences bring a richness to a diverse field. The burden comes from the lack of socialization into a professional field, and ethics study is part of that socialization .

Ethics can be taught. The lingering question is: can ethics, or at the very least moral reasoning, be learnt? And if it can, what are your best learning tools?

^[1] Waithe, M and Ozar, D (1990) The ethics of teaching ethics, Hastings Center Report , 20 (4), p 17