The Influence of teachers' morality on educational outcomes: A literature review

 Ma. Assumpta Joy J. Ballesteros

Divine Word College of Laoag- Graduate School of Education

 Abstract

            Teachers have a significant impact on how students think and develop in the future. In addition to teaching academic content, they are in responsible for fostering the moral and ethical development of their students. The morality of educators has a big impact on student results, character development, academic achievement, and the school climate as a whole. The article explores the various ways in which teachers' morality affects students' academic performance, the difficulties in upholding moral standards, and methods for encouraging moral instruction.

Keywords: Teachers' Morality, Ethical Teaching, Moral Development, Educational Outcomes, Teacher Ethics

Introduction

            The moral integrity and moral conduct of educators are vital in the field of education. Teachers serve as both knowledge providers and role models for their students, and their behaviour and morals have a significant influence on both. A conducive educational atmosphere is facilitated by the moral values that teachers uphold, which include honesty, integrity, empathy, and justice. The paper explores the relationship between instructors' morality and education, looking at how moral behaviour in the classroom affects student involvement, classroom dynamics, and overall educational outcomes.

            Morality is a system of ideals, convictions, and rules that direct a person's actions and choices. It is a set of behaviour standards that are widely recognized in a given community or culture. It points to the distinction between good and wrong and is generally dependent on a person's values and personal views. Teachers are the key persons in the educational setting and whom the students look up to. They play a vital role in the foundation of morality in students. The core responsibility of a professional teacher is to handle students with dignity and respect, as stated in the code of ethics of professional teachers. They uphold proper verbal, physical, emotional, and social boundaries to support students' health, safety, and overall well-being. Teachers naturally exemplify morality in their lives, whether they are working in or out of the school.     Teaching and learning in the classroom are greatly influenced by the teacher's personality and character, and developing a rapport with the students is more important than the actual teaching process. Students' performance can be greatly impacted by the moral behaviour of their teachers. The work ethic of educators, encompassing their devotion, perseverance, and commitment to moral principles, has a direct impact on their effectiveness. Strong work ethics are associated with better teacher performance, which can have a favourable effect on students' academic success. Thus, developing moral behaviour in educators is essential to raising student achievement in the classroom.

            This paper aims to explore the multifaceted ways in which teachers' morality influences education, offering practical recommendations for educators to enhance ethical practices in teaching. By understanding and promoting moral behavior in teachers, we can contribute to a more just and effective educational system.

Literature review

Teachers as Moral Exemplar

            Four essential values; dignity, truthfulness, justice, and responsibility and freedom, make up the foundation of education. Teachers are free to hold the values they choose, but they also have to uphold the standards set by their main role and by-laws and curriculum. A teacher is a moral educator who shares with students the basic principles and values that they work to uphold in their daily lives (Mohammed, 2016). In addition to being inspired by universal respect for human life, teachers should be directed by caring ideals. It is a truth that teachers have a moral obligation to act in their students’ best interests. As students entrust their teachers with their care and responsibility, and teachers are accountable for meeting the requirements of their students. This duty of teaching has significant practical and legal implications for teachers' personal and professional lives. It also establishes an ethical standard of professional activity that educators must adhere to. Teachers should be a models of proper conduct since they must help students grow into morally upright individuals in addition to proving their knowledge (Ilharenil & Aravindah, 2015). Yashoda and Kumar (2017) claim that educators serve as role models for their students. To help learners develop good character traits, they should instil moral principles in them. Through a variety of activities and the media, teachers should establish moral standards for the classroom.

            The moral implications of educational activities link morality and education, and the goal of moral education for teachers is to create morally upright individuals. Teachers always assume role modelling, whether consciously or unconsciously, within or outside the classroom, Teachers become moral agents by setting an example for their students (Caslib, 2014). Therefore, teachers must uphold and demonstrate the highest ethical standards to provide a positive example for the students.

Impact of Teachers' Morality on Students

            Teaching morality refers to efforts made to give students the means they need to develop their morality, whereas teaching morality refers to the morality of the teachers' behaviour. Teachers should be moral role models whose actions and behaviour have a big influence on the students they teach, in addition to being providers of knowledge. The moral code of a teacher, comprising their values, ethical principles, and commitment to professional integrity, can have a significant impact on students' academic performance as well as the learning environment (Shahid et al., 2019).

            Campbell (2003) believes that educators have an ethical duty to consider their students' morality outside of the classroom. Educators can communicate beneficial moral ideas through their interactions, modelling, and example-setting. The environment of the school, and thus the teachers who work there, greatly influence their students to grow up morally and character-wise. They aid in forming learners’ socialization and establishing morality and stability.

            Teaching strategies that follow parenting best practices strongly predict students' learning goals, school interests, and mastery learning orientation. For example, students who have high expectations from their teachers are more likely to seek realistic objectives, take responsibility, and show a commitment to mastery learning. They also tend to do well academically in society. Teachers who uphold moral principles have a beneficial effect on learners' emotional and academic development (Inuyakan-Adebayo & Nwile, 2022). Students who have teachers who have high integrity perform better academically. Teachers' moral character has a direct impact on students' academic performance. When teachers are honest, fair, and committed, they create a positive learning atmosphere where respect and trust grow. Students are more likely to be engaged in their studies and strive for success when they feel that their teachers are ethically sound people.

            The influence of a teacher as a moral role model can be profound and long-lasting. Teachers who set an example of moral behaviour for students often influence their adult students' personal and professional lives by instilling these beliefs in them. Students gain the ability to collaborate on projects, engage in positive peer interactions, and encourage one another's academic growth. These learners will probably contribute greatly to society since they are more likely to be morally pure, sympathetic, and socially aware. Students gain the ability to collaborate on projects, engage in positive peer interactions, and encourage one another's academic growth.

            Likewise, teachers who exhibit moral leadership can also have a beneficial impact on students' perspectives on social issues. Students are more likely to engage in better levels of engagement with society, social responsibility, and ethical behaviour when they are taught by morally upright teachers. Teachers' moral guidance has the power to mould students' personalities and inspire them to contribute positively to both their local communities and society as a whole.

            Mugabo (2020) suggests that teachers should focus on developing students' social and emotional skills as a means of imparting moral values to their students. Most importantly for academic performance are social and emotional skills. Social and emotional learning programs help students learn more academically even if recent evidence indicates that emotional intelligence has a greater impact on life and academic success than academic intelligence. Educators use interventions that target social and emotional skills that are successful in stopping harmful behaviours. A strong indicator of a student’s moral development in the future is social and emotional learning.

Challenges in Maintaining Teachers' Morality

            Maintaining teachers upright in their conduct is essential to creating a supportive and moral learning environment. It can be a difficult responsibility for teachers to always be conscious of their actions and the examples they provide. Teachers need to be aware of their own prejudices and make sure that the values they want to inculcate in their students are reflected in the way they act. They also need to create an atmosphere where people appreciate and comprehend one another's points of view while balancing the varied moral backgrounds of their students.

            Teachers should understand that their behaviour, both on and off the work, can have a significant impact on their professional image since they are role models. Mistakes in decisions can negatively affect students, harm educators' reputations, and reduce public confidence in educational institutions and the teaching profession. According to Anand (2016), educators encounter a variety of difficult ethical challenges and situations in which their own moral principles are tested by those of their colleagues, administrators, and the school community. There are several examples of when educators and administrators make bad choices without giving ethical considerations any thought. Throughout their careers, teachers must deal with a variety of challenges.

            Since teaching is a morally demanding vocation, the classroom atmosphere must uphold the highest moral standards. Also, studies indicate that most of the time teachers are not aware of the consequences of what they do. If teachers manipulate their students' grades in any way, for example, by forcing them to pass an exam they don't deserve to pass or by ignoring incorrect answers, they are acting unethically. Teachers are supposed to be aware of the diversity in the classroom and to respond accordingly, treating all pupils equally regardless of their differences. This requires them to act without any personal bias. Parents' and teachers' perceptions might conflict at times due to differences in what is in the best interests of the students, based on personal experience, as well as differences in the students' aptitude and abilities. Parents may hold differing opinions because they wish to impose their beliefs on their children regarding career choices or other matters (Singh & Sabhawal, 2020).

Challenges in Teaching Morality

            According to Gui, et al. (2020), educators face numerous challenges in their efforts to help learners build moral character and conduct out moral education in school. The method of instruction and assessment provide difficulties for teachers. The interest of students in moral education presents teachers with another problem. Although they learn these moral principles in school, they are unsure of how to put them into practice in real life. When teaching moral principles, teachers consistently employ the same techniques which makes the students tired of the subject. Similarly, insufficient educational resources represent an additional factor (Okeke & Okoye, 2016).

            While any teacher can serve as a moral educator—moral educators or not—to effectively instruct students, they must become knowledgeable about moral concepts and ideas. Some teachers are given assignments by school administrators even if they have never received training in this subject's pedagogy.

            Every level of education has an important role to play to ensure that students develop ethical values. The learners’ environment has changed, and it can be difficult to defend moral principles in a society where everything is designed to appeal to a fleeting and instantaneous perspective on life in general. Making our children understand the worth of human values that are in contrast to their temporal environment is a difficulty (Chandak, 2022).

            As stated by Chowdhury et al. (2019), subject-based training exposed teachers to a variety of instructional techniques. Teachers are uncomfortable and under stress, since they are unable to properly and adequately care for their students and fulfil their responsibilities due to a lack of teachers and a heavy workload. The majority of students are unaware of the advantages of acquiring ethics in their daily lives, and educators fail to adequately clarify the learning objectives of their charges. Thus, there is a discrepancy between what students anticipate to learn and what is expected of them. The right lessons to teach morality and ethics in the classroom are not taught to teachers during their training. Teachers can lose hope in teaching morality when they see no progress in their kids because of their parents' awareness and lack of poverty.

Promoting Ethical Behavior Among Teachers:

            Teachers use their professional competencies and abilities, primarily from their university education to impact students through their teaching; however, continuing professional development and experience are necessary for improvement. The development of professional abilities is linked to an understanding of the ambiguity of education, the impossibility of being fully prepared for teaching, and the issues that come with it (Olejarova, 2017).

            Teaching requires an integration of personality, potential, and competencies; thus educators should focus on improving their professional and moral selves. In along with imparting knowledge, teachers assist students in developing into responsible, moral adults. Teachers should so remember that part of their job is to demonstrate ethical behaviour in addition to professional ability.       According to Bilasová (2016), teacher education is crucial to the development of ethics in the classroom. Teacher preparation should be of high caliber, covering both methodological and pedagogical competencies, and emphasizing a humane approach in addition to the aptitudes and skills necessary for that specific field. This presents us to the moral qualities or skills that teachers should actively work to cultivate and enhance through training and self-improvement in moral performance, moral thinking, and moral decision-making by choosing responsible and focused solutions to common teaching problems.

            The work of Olejarove (2017), states that education demands sensitive and adaptable decision-making in settings that are always changing in the workplace. For this reason, courses on teacher professional ethics have to centre on the acquisition of ethical information, enhancing the capacity of aspiring educators to recognize the ethically significant elements of a given circumstance and to comprehend its moral implications in their entirety. In order for future educators to properly analyze the situation, courses on the professional ethics of teaching should also foster the capacity for moral thought and decision-making.

            Professional development programs should incorporate instruction on ethical education and character development to assist teachers in fulfilling their position as moral role models. Schools should offer a safe space where educators can talk about and consider the difficulties they have had in upholding moral principles. As well as schools and the government must give support to teachers by giving enough learning materials and professional development training.

 Conclusion

            In conclusion, teachers have a vital role in forming their students' moral compass and character since they are moral exemplars. Teachers help shape the next generation of responsible and ethical individuals by their words, deeds, and instilling of values. A key component of a successful education is the morality of the teachers. It has a major impact on pupils' social growth, moral behaviour, and academic success. Teachers can motivate and mentor their students toward successful academic and personal achievements by acting as moral role models and exhibiting these qualities. To ensure that future generations have the knowledge, abilities, and ethical foundation they require to remain viable in a world that is becoming more and more complicated, educational systems everywhere should place a high focus on encouraging high moral standards among educators. Acknowledging and promoting this facet of education can improve learning outcomes for students as a whole and help build a society that is more moral and just.

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