Majo is working as an instructor at a summer camp with young children. She knew she wanted to be an educator from a young age and is strongly guided by her Christian religious values in her daily practice as a teacher. During the first few weeks of the summer camp experience, she was particularly troubled by twin students who were emotionally upset and disruptive, but Majo tried her best to form a bond with them. One day, the twins’ mother came to the school and accused Majo of having physically harmed her children. Majo knew she was not responsible and would never commit such an act, which would be a violation of her personal values. She was protected by her boss and exonerated by footage recorded inside the classroom. However, she wondered after the fact if she should have stood up more strongly for herself, and it worried her to be so easily accused of something she did not do.
Majo is an educator who grew up, studied, and became a teacher in Ecuador. She began teaching formally during her first year as an undergraduate student. Majo became interested in teaching when leading Sunday School at a church when she was 15 years old, and from that experience, she knew she wanted to pursue a career as an educator and know more about how people learn. She pursued the study of Education because she saw that teachers could help students thrive, not only by facilitating the transmission of knowledge but also by guiding their students to grow and become better people. When she began teaching in a school setting, one of her biggest concerns was making sure to preserve her values and ethics as a Christian, a religious identity that was extremely important to her.
Majo had the opportunity to teach English during a summer camp at a Christian school. This was her second formal experience as a classroom teacher getting paid and being directly responsible for a group of students. Majo had to step out of her comfort zone and teach an Early Childhood class of 3-year-old students. This was a challenge because she had to teach English in an immersive setting to Spanish-speaking toddlers, and most of them still were not able to communicate in Spanish either at such a young age. Majo was glad she got to teach at a school that shared the same values and principles of the Christian faith, which included “proclaiming the truth of God described in the Bible, obeying God´s commandments of love and grace, and using God´s given gifts and talents to serve Him in excellence.”
Majo had a warm welcome and a lovely first week of camp with her students. She got to incorporate routines in the classroom with songs, engage in play with the children, and teach them about God and the importance of Jesus in her life. But, during the second week, Majo received two new students who were twins and totally new to the school´s community. This camp was the first experience for the two girls in a school setting, and they cried nonstop their whole first day. They were not able to engage in any of the class activities, and Majo noticed the tension that it brought to herself and her students. She did not have a clear idea about how to help these students cope with the classroom. Majo sought the help of an assistant, who came to the classroom to calm the girls while she engaged with the rest of the class.
After a couple of days of crying and desperation, Majo discovered that recess was the only time that the girls stopped crying because they were engaged in observing others. The twins hadn´t yet had the opportunity to interact with the rest of the classroom or with Majo in any activities, so Majo started to invite them to play with her during recess in the hope of making them feel welcomed and loved. By the end of the week, the twins’ crying was limited only to the early morning, when they had to say goodbye to their mother. Majo was able to interact with them during class, and they were functioning well as part of the group.
However, the Monday of the third week of camp was again very hard for the twins. They went back to crying the whole day, and Majo was not able to work with them. The next morning, Majo received a call from her boss, saying that the twins’ mother was at the gate of the school. The mother was angry, saying that the two girls were hurt by Majo. The mother alleged that Majo had physically assaulted her children by pulling on their ears, and Majo’s boss showed a picture that the mother had sent, displaying visible trauma. Majo was horrified by the picture because it was clear that both twins were injured. However, all she could do was cry herself and say that she was not the one to blame. This was the first and only time Majo had been accused of something like this. It hurt her a lot as an educator, and she explained that she would never hurt a student or anybody else in any sense. She felt that her responsibility for sharing God´s love had been questioned, as well as her ability to care for others, especially her own students. Thankfully, Majo’s boss stood on her side. Furthermore, the classroom had video documentation which showed that Majo was not guilty.
Majo felt relieved she had been able to disprove the accusation, but after that day, her relationship with the twins changed. It seemed as if they even believed their mother’s story. Majo was also worried because she wanted to help the twins and figure out who hurt them, but her school had very strict protocols regarding how much teachers could intervene in students’ personal lives. Majo was not able to follow up on the case.
Although Majo did not commit the act of physical violence that she was accused of, she felt her values and ethics as a Christian person and as a teacher were questioned. She knew she was doing her job with excellence by giving all of what she could to her students, and she was disturbed that she could so easily be accused by a parent of doing something so terrible.
As you reflect on this experience, why was this situation a dilemma for Majo? Why were her values challenged by the accusation?
If you were in a similar situation in which your values were violated, what would your response be? Under what circumstances might you defend yourself immediately? Under what circumstances might you wait for the truth to be uncovered or for evidence to help you? Why?
In what ways do you consider it important to not only state your values but to really live and preach those values? What does it look like for you to put your values into action?