Sample Activities from Teaching the NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct: A Resource Guide, Revised Edition

Educators discussing their profession

The activities that follow are designed to help participants build their awareness of ethics and knowledge about ethical codes.

Activity 3.18: Ethics in the News, in the Comics (Beginning)

Whether you’re teaching a workshop or a course, you can help participants realize that issues of morality and ethics come up often in everyday life. An effective way to begin an introductory workshop or conference session is by sharing newspaper headlines or comics related to ethics and morality. These don’t have to relate to education, schools, or teaching. Whatever the specific topic, newspaper stories help participants realize that ethics is a topic that affects all parts of our lives.

In order to do this you need a collection of ethics-related headlines and cartoons. Start your collection by keeping an eye out for headlines and relevant comic strips in your local newspaper and online sites.

Classic Peanuts, Doonesbury, The Family Circus, and others often address values, morals, and ethics. Headlines and comic strips help an audience appreciate the ethical dimensions of their everyday lives.

Activity 3.19: Brainstorming—Why a Code of Ethics? (Beginning)

Why is it important for a profession to have a code of ethics? Divide participants into small groups to brainstorm some answers to this question. Have the groups report back and compare their responses. Emphasize the following points, if students have addressed them. Add any that they didn’t mention.

It is essential, therefore, that a profession as a whole agrees that its members will conduct themselves according to high moral standards.

Points to Emphasize in Your Teaching

From Teaching the NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct: A Resource Guide, Revised Edition, by S. Feeney, N.K. Freeman, & E. Moravcik. Copyright © 2016 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.