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Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of NAEYC s Code of Erhical Conduct
A strong foundation in professional ethics, which includes knowledge of the NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct and skill in applying it to the real-life workplace, is an essential part of the professional repertoire of every early childhood educator.
Two-and-a-half decades ago, NAEYC saw the need to help educators meet the growing challenges with moral implications that arose in their work with children birth through age 8. The Association articulated educators' deeply rooted values and established guidelines for practice. A five-year development process followed and involved leaders in the early childhood education field and NAEYC members. This led to the first Code of Ethical Conduct, which is still followed today (NAEYC 2005). Since that first NAEYC Governing Board approval 20 years ago, the Code has continued to be reviewed regularly and revised as needed.
This article celebrates NAEYCs accomplishments with regard to professional ethics and looks at how this work may move forward in the future. In this writing 1 describe the ethical journey of early care and education in the United States, explain why ethics is so important for early childhood educators, and share some hopes for the future of ethics in early childhood education.
The journey
At first, the topic of ethics may seem too abstract or boring. But when early childhood educators look at the real ethical issues they encounter in their work, it gets more interesting, often compelling. Professional ethics helps us as early childhood educators to think about our responsibilities to children, families, communities, and society and to address some of the difficult situations we face every day.
Some of the issues early childhood educators encounter, for example, * Relate to children's behavior:
A large-for-his-age preschooler uses aggressive behavior that frightens and hurts other children. They are afraid of him, and their parents start to express concern to the center director. The teachers feel stressed and tired. They spend so much time helping manage this child that other children do not get the attention they need.
* Involve families:
The mother of a 4-year-old asks his preschool teacher not to let him nap in the afternoon. She says the nap causes him to stay up too late, and she...