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Jus et civitas
Vol. VIII(LXXII)
No. 2/2021
92 - 98
A Journal of Social and Legal
Studies
ETHICAL VIEW ON TEACHER-STUDENT
RELATIONSHIP. A PANDEMIC APPROACH
Dragoș Grigorescu, Dana Volosevici
Petroleum-Gas University of Ploiesti, Bd. Bucharest, no. 39, Ploiesti, Romania
e-mail: dgrigorescu@upg-ploiesti.ro
DOI:10.51865/JETC.1.07.12
Abstract
The health crisis we are going through is very demanding on the relationship between students and
teachers in terms of professional ethics. Many teachers had real difficulties in applying legal measures of
social distancing, limiting students' access to classrooms (hybrid physical and online system, imposing
hygiene measures, etc.), which together negatively affected the quality of the teacher-student relationship.
The emotional and cognitive comfort that teachers must provide to students according to the codes of
didactic ethics, the sense of belonging and relationship resulting from a class management aimed at
stimulating team spirit became during the pandemic incompatible with health safety rules imposed by
authority. In this context, we propose through this paper to debate the need to theoretically complete the
future codes of ethics of the teaching profession with the concept of ethics of care. The authors believe
that especially in extreme contexts, such as the Covid 19 pandemic, we need to bring to mind the
foundations of human relationships based on the valorization of students by their teachers, and specific
codes of ethics should be more explicit in dignity provisions. to all those involved in education.
Keywords: education, law, the student-teacher relationship, ethical code
Introduction
The relationship between teachers and students consists of a network of connections
with implications in many fields, from pedagogical or psychological to the legal field. It
is a professional relationship, regulated from the perspective of the roles of those
involved, by providers of educational services in the case of teachers or by direct
beneficiaries of the educational act, when it comes to students. But it is also an
interpersonal relationship that profoundly affects the quality and efficiency of the
educational process, especially in the case of young students. From this point of view,
education, despite the fact that it requires a multitude of relationships between teachers
and students worthy of being regulated from an ethical point of view, is generally
devoid of a unitary code of ethics with extended applicability from one type of school to
another. from one age segment to another. Often the codes of professional conduct are
adopted at the local level or even at the level of separate schools, from kindergartens to
universities.
Legal and ethical view on teacher - students relationship 93
A particular case is the Order 4,831 / 2018 regarding the approval of the Framework
Code of Ethics of the teaching staff in pre-university education. It should be the basis of
the Codes of Professional Ethics adopted by the teachers' councils of the pre-university
education units, together with Law no. 477/2004 on the Code of Conduct for contract
staff in public authorities and institutions. According to the Framework Code of Ethics
for Pre-University Teachers, teachers must carry out their professional activity in
accordance with at least 15 values and principles, one of which refers directly to the
relationship between teacher and student, respectively "respect and promoting the best
interests of the direct beneficiary of education”. A definition of the best interests of the
direct beneficiary of education is not provided by the cited act or by the National
Education Law.
Legal considerations
Article 5 of the Code regulates the relationship between teachers and direct beneficiaries
of education, by establishing three obligations for teachers, namely "to know", "to
respect" and "to apply" rules of conduct. The provision of the Code, although likely to
impress at first reading by listing obligations, can be reduced to a single verb,
respectively obligation, namely "to comply", knowledge of the law being presumed by
the provisions of the Constitution, and compliance with the law and its application.
The scope of application of the legal norms that teachers must comply with covers a
wide field, namely the protection of the physical, mental and moral health of the direct
beneficiaries of education, the prohibition of any activities that generate corruption,
ensuring equal opportunities and promoting the principles of inclusive education.
respect for the dignity and recognition of the personal merit of each direct beneficiary of
education. Of course, in the case of a code of ethics, the provisions must remain general,
but the areas mentioned above are so broad that the provisions of the code risk covering
everything without covering anything.
An additional complex study is needed to establish what are, in fact, the obligations of
the teachers described in art. 5 of the Code, which results in the provisions remaining at
the declarative level. It is necessary to establish clear, expressly expressed obligations
and even to establish “lighthouse” obligations that characterize the profession and
distinguish it from other activities.
In this regard, other professions, such as law or medicine, have codes of ethics on the
conduct of staff of general application and which have managed to penetrate the public
consciousness and even contribute to the formation of a professional ethical conscience.
It is enough to think about the professional secrecy of lawyers or the observance of the
privacy of the medical act by doctors to understand that in the case of the teaching
profession things are not so clear. There are still teachers who publicly communicate the
school situation of students of all parents in various ways, either directly, in meetings
with physical presence or indirectly, through electronic means of interaction such as e-
learning platforms or even socializing.
There are also teachers who are very careful in communicating the school situation of
their students to people other than the parents or legal representatives of the students.
The current pandemic situation has further complicated the diversity of educational
94 Dana Volosevici, Dragoș Grigorescu
practices that are ethically questionable on the background and so very flexible of
ethically unregulated behaviors in any way in the Romanian school. The present text
does not aim to inventory all these gray areas of professional teaching ethics nor to
make a comparison on the size of this gray area compared to other professions, but to
introduce a new benchmark of ethical analysis of the teaching profession with profound
implications on the relationship. between teachers and students. This benchmark is
called care and, in our opinion, is a necessary regulatory criterion in any code of ethics
for educators.
Why a code of ethics and not a legal regulation? Because the law has chosen to establish
norms of general conduct with a rather impersonal character, leaving the ethical or soft
law regulations to cover aspects that require a moral analysis.
A short example. In the regulation of the Civil Code, the teacher-student relationship is
regulated in the sense of establishing a liability of the teacher for the acts of the student
for the damage caused to a person by the latter. The responsibility is based on the
teacher's obligation to supervise, a supervision that is based on the notion of "guard".
The comments of the doctrine regarding the interpretation of art. 1372 of the Civil Code
are relevant. The relationship between the student and the teacher "can be justified from
the perspective of the" guard "of the minor, like the one exercised by the legal guardian
of things".
In order to respond to the criticisms regarding the dilution of the educational-preventive
function of tortious liability and the disregard of the child's personality, which is
assimilated to one thing, the authors specify that the advantages of the legal construction
we propose are much more important than these ethical-moral reflections (sn). offering
to those called to apply the rule of law a clear, precise and efficient legal construction
capable of effectively supporting the victims of illicit deeds in obtaining reparation”
(Boilă, 2014, pp. 154-155).
The liability established by the Civil Code is an objective liability, based on the idea of
assuming the risk related to the exercise of authority (by the teacher) over the student
perpetrator. In return for exercising authority over the students, the teacher assumes a
risk of incurring civil damages in the event of a student injury procedure (Boilă, 2014,
pp. 154-155).
Even for a non-lawyer, it is obvious that the regulation of liability in the Civil Code has
a technical character, lacking any concern to nuance the legal relationship with ethical
issues. When issues such as the mission, values and guiding principles of an
organization or profession need to be addressed, the solution is to adopt a code of ethics
or a code of ethics.
For these reasons, the regulation of the notion of "care" must be done through the code
of ethics, and the experience of the pandemic can be a good argument for
supplementing existing codes.
If in many countries the pandemic was associated with the state of emergency or the
state of alert, we consider that in education one of the ethical urgencies is the care of
teachers towards the well-being of students in the context of the presence of this virus.
Teachers have a new lesson to teach students: living in the classroom and at home for a
long time with a potentially dangerous virus. This lesson is not only for students, but
Legal and ethical view on teacher - students relationship 95
also for teachers. This lesson is not only one of health education, but also one of
compassion, mercy, empathy, in short it is a lesson of care.
The preservation of humanity, the feeling of valorization of students by teachers, but
also the maintenance of a relationship between teachers and students were required by
the context of the limitations imposed by health safety rules. In the absence of clear
guidelines, such as care, the ethical relationship between teachers and students has
suffered and created discontent for both parties.
The discontinuity of physical contact, the precariousness of contact by electronic means
have weakened the cognitive and emotional connection between teachers and students.
The insecurity of their own health and the suspicion of being carriers and transmitters of
the virus have prevailed in many situations, which have obviously negatively affected
the relationship between teachers and students. The general uncertainty regarding the
state of health has often made the care, compassion and consideration for students less
important in the student-teacher relationship, but instead they have given way to
behaviors based on the strict application of health rules, on their own safety, on the
creation of internal rules of the school that accentuate the social distance.
Undoubtedly, the pandemic is still a force majeure, difficult to anticipate and implicitly
almost impossible to manage through prior exercises. Behavioral slippages that have
severely affected the relationship between teachers and students were inherent, but with
the help of fundamental ethical guidelines such as care we can learn from the present
mistakes. How difficult it would be for a teacher to interact with a student, whom he had
not met before, only through a laptop or mobile phone, and how difficult it would be for
a student to establish a human and professional relationship with an educator or a
teacher he has never seen in real life, however, moral reflexes must prevail.
Communication, interaction, relationship between teacher and student must follow the
path of mutual respect and well-being, even under conditions of pressure or stress.
Ethics of care and teaching profession
Care is not a new concept in education, it can even be considered one of the main
elements that balance the relationship between teacher and student. Just as in law there
are fundamental principles such as equality before the law, so in the case of the teaching
profession there is the principle that no one should suffer in any way from participating
in education. We consider the most appropriate ethical expression of this principle to be
the ethics of care (Gillian, 1982). By care we mean the attention given by teachers and
students to each other so that no one suffers from participating in the educational act in
terms of personal well-being. It should be noted that care, as we have defined it, is two-
way, with both students and teachers benefiting from it. Unlike the legal approach in
which the rights of one subject of law represent the correlative obligation of another
subject, in the ethical approach the relations between the parties are based on the
common acquisition.
By welfare we mean meeting the conditions for validating the person in accordance
with the values of citizenship education: recognizing the value of feelings and inner
states, recognizing the importance of the opinions of those involved in education and,
finally, recognizing the value of independent will of students and teachers. These three
96 Dana Volosevici, Dragoș Grigorescu
characteristics form the identity of every human being. No context, however special or
unforeseen, such as the current pandemic, can justify the total or partial alteration of
these human values: feelings, thoughts and intentions. In addition, these three
characteristics are elements of fundamental human rights, such as the right to dignity or
freedom of thought and expression. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
states, inter alia, the right of the discerning child to freely express his or her views on
any matter concerning him or her, the right to freedom of expression and freedom of
thought.
The observance of some sanitary norms aims at preserving the state of health, and in its
turn, health means not only non-contamination, but also ensuring the well-being of the
student, ie the status of a person with his own identity and who needs permanent
valorization. It is true that the establishment of sanitary norms was made in the context
generated by the dynamics of the evolution of the national and international
epidemiological situation, determined by the spread of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus,
invoking the general public interest, the existence of an emergency of great magnitude
and intensity (Law 55/2020 on some measures to prevent and combat the effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic, Preamble, published in the Official Gazette of Romania no. 396
of 15 May 2020).
A complex system of legal regulations has implemented mechanisms designed "to
adequately and with priority protect the conventional, union and constitutional rights to
life, physical integrity and health care and taking into account the obligation imposed by
the Basic Law on the State of to take measures to ensure the hygiene and public health
of the citizens”( Law 55/2020 on some measures to prevent and combat the effects of
the COVID-19 pandemic, Preamble, published in the Official Gazette of Romania no.
396 of 15 May 2020).
Without questioning in any way the exceptional nature of the pandemic situation and
the validity of the sanitary measures instituted, what we want to see is the need to
duplicate these legal and sanitary actions aimed at protecting defining elements for the
human being and its valorization. In turn, valorization means obvious and practical
respect for the student's well-being. The value of care must not be conditioned by the
observance of rules: When the rules exert such priority that humanity is dampened,
something has clearly gone awry, and yet the hearts of those around us are the last
things considered as we carefully train our students in ethical reasoning (Shelby, 2003,
pp. 341). Even when the rules are imposed by law, they should not become the norm for
interpersonal reporting, but only frameworks of increased safety in which we continue
to respect our students in all aspects of their personality.
Of course, the way in which the teacher-student relationship is legally regulated will
have an effect on the way in which the concept of care can be assumed by the
educational environment. A brief analysis of the Student Statute, approved by Order of
the Minister of Education, is relevant to the way in which the official institutional
message is conveyed. Thus, all 31 rights listed in Article 7 of the Statute remain in the
space of immediate concretion: free access to education in the state education system,
the right to be consulted and to express their choice for the subjects in the curriculum at
the decision of the school, the right to an objective and correct evaluation, the right to
contest the results of the evaluation of written works, etc. Without contesting the
importance of each of the mentioned rights, from reading the legal enumeration it
Legal and ethical view on teacher - students relationship 97
results that the school-teacher-student relationship is approached in a strictly
administrative way, which leaves little room for the development of soft law notions,
based on ethics and morals.
Situations in which the pandemic caused fractures between students and teachers
brought with it devaluations of care. Teachers have become indifferent to the well-being
of students and vice versa. The obsession to relate in performance education, on the
fulfillment of some cognitive standards provided in the school planning, the coverage
with various regulations of the forms of academic community, does not exclude the
concern for the subjective and personal experience of the students. Students' cognitive
progress and academic performance are also based on the process of knowledge as an
inner experience of exploration and personal development of students. Many times, the
pandemic has forced us to treat students mainly statistically as incidences and figures of
infections, isolation at home, etc. A teacher aware of the ethical dimension of education
pays special attention to the painful experience of going through one form or another of
Covid-19 disease.
The principle is that everyone is infected until proven otherwise, it is only good as a
way to reduce the spread of the disease, but it must coexist with care for the student in
terms of his well-being. Disease ethics refers to behaviors that are in favor of others and
not against them. An ethical principle regarding going through the disease could be: no
one is to blame for getting sick. In this way we would avoid many unpleasant episodes
for all those involved, students, teachers and parents, in which the teacher sorts medical
at the entrance to school or class, monitors the health of each student, communicates
suspicions of illness to colleagues, teachers and parents, etc. In the absence of a concern
about the educational procedure, many teachers probably felt alone in making difficult
decisions, some provided for in medical or institutionalized procedures, others not.
Another approach was to invoke the legal provisions governing the state of emergency
and subsequently the state of alert, to justify the distance from the educational act and
the relationship with students. It is true that Law 55/2020 stipulates that "the Ministry of
Education and Research has the obligation to provide support on material resources,
teacher training and the methodological framework for conducting online courses", an
obligation that has been partially fulfilled. Without justifying in any way the lack of
action of the administrative authority, the invocation of the non-compliance with the
obligation of the Ministry of Resources and Training to justify the lack of didactic
activity, a reduced or inadequate activity from a qualitative point of view, can prove the
violation of moral norms. regarding the care to be given to students.
If the ethical principle of care in education were to prevail, then it would be easier to
overcome frustrations related to teacher-student interactions with a closed room, fears
about who makes someone sick, who is more or less obedient to regulations, and so on.
Equally caring is in itself an important lesson for students, because caring is something
that is learned and, as usual, what can be learned can be learned from a good teacher.
Learning to care and agree to be cared for (Noddings, 2013, p. 25) is a necessary lesson
for an ethic of care in education.
The current pandemic and any other natural disaster, no matter how catastrophic, should
not deprive students of an extraordinarily useful exercise: caring for those you work
98 Dana Volosevici, Dragoș Grigorescu
with. Students need to learn the importance of caring from their teachers, and students
can only learn to care from their caring teachers, especially when faced with a disaster
such as a pandemic. Maybe the pandemic surprised us with the unlearned lesson of care,
but getting out of the pandemic with the unlearned lesson of care would be just as great
a catastrophe.
Bibliography
1. Candice L. Shelby (2003). Care Ethics in Education, The Educational Forum,
67:4, 337-342, DOI: 10.1080/00131720308984582
2. Boilă, L. R. (2014). Paza juridică în Fl. A. Baias, E. Chelaru, R.
Constantinovici, I. Macovei (coord). Noul Cod Civil. Comentariu pe articole,
ediția 2, Editura C.H. Beck.
3. Boilă, L. R. (2014). Răspunderea subiectivă, în Fl. A. Baias, E. Chelaru, R.
Constantinovici, I. Macovei (coord). Noul Cod Civil. Comentariu pe articole,
ediția 2, Editura C.H. Beck.
4. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's
development. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
5. Noddings, N. (2013). Caring: A Relational Approach to Ethics and Moral
Education, University of California Press.
Viziunea etică privind relația profesor-elev.
O abordare pandemică
Rezumat
Criza sanitară prin care trecem solicită foarte mult relația dintre elevi și profesori din punct de vedere al
deontologiei profesionale. Mulți profesori au avut dificultăți reale în aplicarea măsurilor legale de
distanțare socială, limitare a accesului elevilor în sălile de clasă (sistem hibrid fizic și on line, impunerea
unor măsuri de igienă etc.), care împreună au afectat negativ calitatea relației profesor-elev. Confortul
emoțional și cognitiv pe care profesorii trebuie să-l asigure elevilor conform codurilor de etică didactică,
sentimentul de apartenență și relaționare rezultat în urma unui management al clasei orientat către
stimularea spirtului de echipă au devenit pe perioada pandemiei incompatibile cu normele de siguranță
sanitară impuse de autorități. În acest context, ne propunem prin prezenta lucrare să dezbatem
necesitatea completării teoretice a viitoarelor coduri deontologice ale profesiei didactice cu conceptul de
etică a grijii. Convingerea autorilor este că mai cu seamă în contexte limită, cum este pandemia de Covid
19, este nevoie să readucem în atenție fundamentele relațiilor umane bazate pe valorizarea elevilor de
către profesorii lor, iar codurile deontologice specifice ar trebui să fie mai explicite în prevederi despre
demnitatea tuturor celor implicați în educație.
