When Don't You Tell The Teacher?

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Is Lever right to tell only half a truth?

Ordinarily, Lara would say no. As a mulitnational corporate executive, she's seen too many deceptions and spia cycles.

But then herson Troy tinned 11.

When he had been diagnosed win am id case of attention defect disorder (ADD) four years earlier Lara (not her real name) and her husband had put him on Rialh. Over the next four years , his schooling progressed well His energy seem ed nothing more than the ram bunctbusness of youth. As a result they never changed the original dosage even as his body grew. Finally overa summer; they took him off the drug. He was fine.

As falloapproached, Lara laced a tough ethral choice . It w sn't about whether to go back to the drug; that was behind them. It was about whether to tell his teachers . He was heading into a new schcolwhere nobody knew his past. Should she share it?

On the one hand, she feltan obligation to tell When you are dealing with people who are educating your child,'' she said, "they need to understand your chid." For her, schooling is a two-way street," that requires cooperation am ong patente and teachers.

On the other hand, she was keen to protect hte identity as a healhy, vigorous invidual rather than a chid with ADD . 'You read about people whose kids get labeled," she said "and you say, "I can't believe that happened so fasti' But children do get labeled pretty fast."

Why was her dilemma so tough? Because it piled her core ethical values against each other. It was right to honour the community of educators - and right to defend her son's individuality. Truth-telling required her not to mislead the school- yet byaly made her protect. Troy from ham fulprofiling. With individual needs confronting community benefits , and with truth up against byaly, there were powerful oral arguments stacked up on each side . Both were right.

Which should she choose?

In the end, she and her husband remaned silent. At her first parent-teacher conference, Lara heard a glowing report. Troy was doing well in class, the teacher told her adding that "his grades are good, and we love having hin here." Case closed, Lara thought wih enormous relief So as she gotup to leave, she toll his teacher they had taken Troy off Rialh that summer

And within seconds, Lara told me, everything changed. The teacher "shook her head and said, Oh, now I understand why Im having so many problems with your son G" Eon that point forward, Lara says, he was "mmediately labeled" and 'everything went downhill"

To this day, Lara says, "Im convinced that she just decided to labelhm . It didn't matter whether he was just being a typical kid. In her mind he wasn't being typical he was that kid with ADD who needs to geton his medication again'"

Troy is now 14 . He's changed schools again. Since that tin e, Lara adm is, "I have not told the schcolsystem a thhg ." Troy occasionally loses hte concentration, but he's learning to handle the chalenge wihout using drugs or going public . "It was a tough fight going forward," she concludes .

But was Ian ethical fight? Was the a wise defense of his dignity - oran irresponsible disobedience of expectatbns?

Lara's dilamma rem inds us that our toughest moral isues are not right-versus-wrong but right-versus-rght. Is it right to take a firm stand against the all-too-hum an tendency, even among well-meaning educators, to see carratures instead of individuals? Many would say "yes" . For them , ethics te about consequences : IE fangs turn outwell (as ultimately happened in Troy's case) , you did the righ thing.

But isn't it also right to share pertinent details with teachers, so they can better care for their studente? Yes indeed. Many think Lara should have engaged in full disclosure, despite the risk of a teacher vulnerable to resist stereotyping. For them , ethics is about universal laws : Stick to the principes you want everyone to obey wihout exception (transparency, in this case), and you usher in a more ethicalworld .

Consequences versus principles - or; in phibsophical tem s, John Stuart Mills utilitariarism versus Emanuel Kant's categorical in peratnve .Across that see-saw are balanced the word's toughest ethical issues . Every reader of Lara's dilemma, Isuspect, sees the rightness on both sues - yet intuitively feels that one right is higher Grasping the simple fact that ethics te about much more than good and bad, we're ready to replace 'Im -rightyou're-wrong' arguments with rght-versusright dialogue -for ourselves , for our students, and for their parents.

Anything less misrepresents the moral intimacy of our world.