The Board of Education violated Mrs. Pettit right to privacy. Throughout her career, Pettit had been working with children experiencing disabilities intellectually over thirteen years. At no time there emerged that there were negative evaluations in her professional work. Her performance as a teacher was never interfered by her sexual activities which were outside her working hours in “Swingers.” Right to privacy of an individual should not be interfered with whatsoever. As a teacher, Pettit was entitled to do anything as long as her professionalism was not affected by her activities.
“Our private lives should not be of other people concerns since spying a person outside their workplace in a violation of rights.” On the other hand, Pettit is likely to lose her authority and respect if the public is aware of her sexual behaviour. This is mainly from administrators of the school and the parents to the children that she is teaching.
If her job performance was negatively affected by her involvement in sexual activities, the Board was free to act.
However, the Board of Education violated her right to privacy. In my own opinion, the Board of Education was not justified in firing her. As a teacher at an elementary school, her private life was very different from her professional life. Her lifestyle with the children was never exposed. Her experience at school as per the expectations of the authority were outstanding. At school, she only did what she was expected to do by the administration since the children never understood her private life.
Their values remained intact without exposure. There lacked evidence to prove she was unfit to teach because of her sexuality morality views. The Board of Education only concluded that she needed to be fired because of her morals hence her inability to explain. Her record at the school was outstanding and at no point in her teaching was she found misconducting with any of the students (Lattal & Clark, 2005) The behaviour by Pettit was not immoral nor unprofessional.
I believe she was fit to continue with her teaching career. Her character was what could be regarded and how she was dealing with her work in her professionalism. Her personal life should not have been involved at any time since she was being spied on. Pettite had experience in her professional practice, and there were zero instances where she had negative evaluations in her duties. Performing her job had no problem since she had the necessary qualities. As a teacher, acting unprofessional was never an issue since she did everything according to the expectations. She had all the qualifications needed to be a teacher. Pettit was highly dedicated to enlightening children with the required information at the elementary school since she was skilful, patience and devoted. She was called unprofessional by people when she was seen taking part in sexual activities. Although she was referred to being unethical, there lacked an understanding that she was outside her professional work. Unethical in private life had nothing to do with her work when in terms of expressing her character to children.
There were zero instances that she was seen going against the expectations at school while teaching. Spying on her which was the decision of the Board of Education was never right since this was invading her personal life. In terms of her work, I believe she was professional since she did nothing wrong. We cannot judge people in terms of their decisions. Pettit never exposed her sexual preference which was her own decision. We cannot determine if what she was doing was right or wrong. Pettit kept her sexual desires private until the Board of Education decided to investigate the allegations. “There lacked clear evidence by the Board that she was unfit to teach at the elementary school since she was highly qualified for the job.” Teachers should not be held higher moral standards outside the classroom if they have good performance inside the classroom. The most important thing that teachers should enhance is the passing of knowledge to students.
Teachers are only required to improve their professionalism in the classroom setting which leads to the generation of experience to the concerned students. If a teacher fulfils all that has been requested by the Board of Education at school, matters to do with private life are not necessary. The school environment should hold the teacher liable if there is negativity by students or underperformance. In the case concerning Pettit, she never involved what she was doing in her private life at the school setting. Moreover, she kept the information private. Judging a person on their private lives should not prevent a teacher from accomplishing what they are intended to do as long as they fulfil their job requirements. For example, the current US president, Donald Trump has been accused of sexual allegations.
He is even accused of rape cases and sexual harassments by more than 15 women since the 1980s. However, his private life never prevented him from becoming the US president. Although he has lost respect which has affected his job performance, he has shown his outstanding ability to lead the United States since he is accomplishing his political promises he made during his presidential campaigns. This implies to the roles played by teachers. If they are doing what the board requires, their private lives should not be of concern to the school. Performance in the classroom and outside the school are two different areas which should not collide. “In the classroom setting, meeting the requirements is a must failure to which the School Board should intervene.” There are various behaviours that I believe would be unprofessional conduct for a teacher. For a teacher, the classroom environment is supposed to be an ideal that should be melded and maintained by professionalism.
In a classroom environment where there is negativity, lack of performance, lack of productivity and teamwork, misunderstandings result. The five unprofessional behaviours include: talking on a cell phone while in class, eating in front of the student and going to the classroom while wearing house slippers or shoes. The other two are setting up a classroom behaviour system where pizza party rewards are involved due to the love of Papa Johns and giving assignments mainly because as a teacher you want to develop content on a blog about it. The five behaviours by a teacher show unprofessional conduct since the students’ performance have interfered. Students will build negativity towards the teacher, and the mode of teaching will become difficult since there will be resistance facilitated by the incidences of favours by the teacher. Moreover, there will be the growth of disrespect hence the inability to develop strong and long lasting relationships in the classroom between the teacher and the students.
Attitude Towards Their Work in Their Professionalism. (2022, Dec 16). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/attitude-towards-their-work-in-their-professionalism/