Vertex - The Online Journal of Adult and Workforce Education

Vertex - The Online Journal of Adult and Workforce EducationEthical Choices Today
by Dr. Marlene Caroselli It's easy to influence. It's much harder to influence with integrity. Adult education professionals, in particular, face difficult integrity-choices, for their sphere of influence extends so far beyond the immediate. Their choices affect more than those whom they teach. The choices involve both the content and the context of the knowledge they share.

In the simplest sense, "integrity" means living according to specified values. But, of course, simplicity is usually deceptively complex. Living by specified values involves complex ramifications and interpretations. The definition of integrity that we endorse has ever-widening circles. The more integrity you demonstrate, the more widespread the benefits to others. And thus, adult education professionals hold a special place in the hierarchy of influencers: their opportunities to benefits others are both immediately intensive and indirectly extensive.

When you act with integrity, you are widening the sphere of influence, you are using power tools to achieve powerful benefits for those who "buy" your concepts or your commodities. And, like it or not, you are indeed "selling" your beliefs. First, by your choice regarding which concepts to include in your curriculum, and second, by your choice to share your views or biases regarding those concepts. (It was Soren Kierkegaard who noted that "education without bias is like love without passion.")