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Getting to ethical grips with AI

Our ethics lessons are an opportunity for students to engage in meaningful discussions of real-life issues. These discussions are not just academic – they’re about equipping young minds with skills in critical thinking, ethical reasoning and respectful discussion that will help them navigate the complexities of the world they’re growing up into.

Practical ethics isn’t a static subject. Since our curriculum was first developed, we’ve seen some pretty significant changes in the sorts of technologies students engage with on a day-to-day basis. Technologies that bring with them a whole host of new (and sometimes old) ethical dilemmas.

Is it okay to use artificial intelligence to help with schoolwork?

As artificial intelligence (AI) technologies like chatbots, search engines and personalised recommendations become ever-present in students’ lives, it’s important for them to reflect on how they engage with such technologies. So we’ve developed an exciting new topic on AI for Stage 3 (Years 5-6). Some of the big questions students consider in this topic include: How is AI different from and similar to human intelligence? Is it okay to use artificial intelligence to help with schoolwork? To what extent can we trust AI and how do we know when not to trust it? Can we be friends with a chatbot? Is it bad to be cruel to artificial intelligence?

This new addition to our curriculum is not just about keeping pace with technological trends. It’s about preparing students for a future where they can confidently and ethically navigate the digital landscape. By fostering a deep, nuanced understanding of these issues, we’re helping shape a generation of informed, ethical digital citizens.

Ethics arrives on Lord Howe Island

Our most isolated program – Lord Howe Island Central School (LHICS) – commenced its first ever ethics program in Term 4 2023. Lisa Ralph and Lucille Wilson, friends who are both school parents, trained as ethics teachers and kicked off the program. LHICS is a tiny school with just 41 students from Kindy to Year 6. In its first term, ethics enrolled a third of the student body! The island does not have mobile coverage, but it does have an ethics program.

Lisa moved to Lord Howe 12 years ago and with her husband runs the Dive Lord Howe shop. Lu came to the island in 2021. Lisa and Lu were very enthusiastic about bringing ethics into their school as an alternative for the non-scripture students. In the past, students who opted out of scripture would sit in a separate room together doing colouring-in, hardly a ‘meaningful activity’.

A unique island

People living on the island find themselves in a unique environment. There are countless advantages to the tranquillity and beauty; there are also inherent challenges in the isolation. Note, though, the Primary Ethics remote online training model works really well!

Lu says that “offering Primary Ethics is an important part of ensuring our kids have access to the same educational experiences as students on the mainland. Having my own son in my class is really enjoyable, because I get to see firsthand how he works with his peers and I really love being able to engage with the kids as a teacher, rather than just Leo’s mum.”

Lisa Ralph and Lucille Wilson outside their pretty island school.

Our remote location means our kids are less exposed to city-based influences, but they know there’s a wide world out there and I think ethics will help them be ready to embrace it.

Lisa echoes Lu’s thoughts. “I’d also like to add that I thoroughly enjoy fostering critical thinking and watching the students’ intellectual growth as they respectfully explore the complexities of right and wrong. Having my eldest daughter in the class is both challenging and rewarding and I love witnessing her contribute to our conversations, both during our sessions and at home.”

Lu also thinks that “the popularity of ethics within the school is a great indication of the progressive nature of the next generation coming through on the island. Historically, we might have a conservative culture and our remote location means our kids are less exposed to city-based influences, but they know there’s a wide world out there and I think ethics will help them be ready to embrace it.”

Working with a small remote school

Initially in 2023, both the classes on Lord Howe were just under the eight mark, which is usually our minimum for a class. We worked with the volunteers and school to ensure that lesson materials matched the group needs. In 2024, the program and class sizes have grown, so that both now number over eight. It’s wonderful to have a program that’s growing on such a small island!

Primary Ethics is delighted to announce the Kinghorn Volunteer Award 2023, which brings substantial prize money to go to the recipient’s chosen school, as well as public recognition and appreciation for the often-unsung efforts of our wonderful volunteers.

This award will honour an ethics volunteer who has strongly contributed to the success of the ethics program at their school – or schools. We want to acknowledge someone who is a team player, good communicator, supportive of other volunteers, reliable and committed to our program of ethics education.

The award is open to all ethics teachers, coordinators, regional managers and members of the Classroom Support Team (except Primary Ethics staff). Every volunteer can nominate other volunteers for this award – there is no limit on numbers of nominations. Only volunteers who have been active in 2023 are eligible to be nominated.

We are looking for someone who:

has made a significant contribution to our mission to deliver ethics education to children so that they can develop skills in ethical reasoning, critical thinking and respectful discussion
has conducted themselves in a manner true to our values of respect, integrity, independence, excellence and teamwork.

THE PRIZE

The winner has the privilege of directing $4000 towards the library service in the school or schools of their choosing. They will be awarded an engraved trophy and their school library will be given a hardcopy copy of Sapiens: A Graphic History: The Birth of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, containing a bookplate with details of this award winner.

We will present the award to the winner at a ceremony in December 2023.

Make your nomination here >>

Nominations close at midnight on 22 September, 2023.

The winner will be announced in late November 2023.

WHY THE KINGHORN AWARD?

The Chair of the Primary Ethics Board, Bruce Hogan, through his Hogan Family Foundation, is funding this award in order to recognise the fantastic contribution of the Kinghorn Family Foundation to Primary Ethics.

Primary Ethics would not be where it is today without the Kinghorns. From 2013 to 2023, John and Jill Kinghorn’s Foundation provided significant funding to Primary Ethics. This generous funding directly resulted in the employment of urgently needed staff to manage and develop ethics programs and provide teacher training.

This Kinghorn Award recognises both the pivotal role the Foundation has played and the significant role of the winner in bringing our ethics program to more children in our state.

THE JUDGING PANEL

The judging panel will be comprised of:

The Chair of the Primary Ethics Board, Bruce Hogan
Two randomly selected volunteers – you can express interest in being on the panel on the nomination form
CEO of Primary Ethics, Evan Hannah
plus others tba

Now is the time to think, reason and if necessary discuss your reasons for choosing your nominee – and then go ahead and nominate them!

Empathy – an ethics class on Insight SBS-TV

What is empathy? Do we need to learn to be more empathetic? Can empathy be taught? The SBS program Insight dedicated an episode to this question, which aired on 16 May 2023.

Insight visited a public school in Sydney and filmed a wonderful Stage 2 ethics class on empathy taught by Primary Ethics volunteer Shing Ka, where students learn to consider other children’s feelings and motivations. It’s just a snippet of the whole 30-minute lesson but is a strong illustration of an ethics community of inquiry in action.

Swee Goh, Jill Kinghorn and Bruce Hogan.

Swee Goh is the inaugural winner of the Kinghorn Award for ethics volunteers. Swee is the manager for the ethics program Ryde region in inner northwest Sydney.

Swee was presented with her framed certificate in our office by Bruce Hogan, Chair of the Primary Ethics Board, and Jill Kinghorn, one of our chief supporters.

Swee also wins $4000 to direct to the schools of her choice. Some of that money is going to a very supportive school in her Ryde region, Smalls Road Public School (see page 5). She also wanted to give to a school that had been badly affected by floods – Mullumbimby Public School (see page 2) in the northern rivers.

This school was closed for several months while they waited for flood waters to recede and basic repairs to be made. Children were allocated to attend nearby schools. Obviously, there was no ethics program at all in 2022, though we are hoping it is able to restart in 2023.

Warm thanks go to Swee for nominating a school outside her region to receive prize money. We’re very impressed that she chose to assist students in a flood-affected area. Not just ethics students, but all students at the school will benefit. This is why Swee deserves to win the Kinghorn Award – to be recognised and valued for the wonderful work she does as an ethics volunteer and to acknowledge the amazing person she is!

“If I had to pick one person to start Primary Ethics from scratch tomorrow, Swee would be the first volunteer I would contact” – Primary Ethics staff member

Swee has built and maintained an outstanding ethics program in the Ryde region. She has recruited volunteers tirelessly to build the program to where it is today. Due primarily to her efforts, almost every parent in Ryde currently has the option of choosing ethics for their children. Swee is currently responsible for ethics programs in 12 schools. She regularly teaches at three schools and has taught at all others in the region. She manages 11 coordinators and 62 teachers supplying 64 classes, which approximates to more than 1000 students receiving ethics lessons on her watch each week.

Q+A with Swee

What motivates you to volunteer?

I find being an ethics volunteer extremely satisfying as I am working with fellow volunteers and a supportive and professional organisation. They all share the same interest, passion and commitment to bringing ethics education to children in primary schools. They are doing it because they want to!

Working as a relief ethics teacher in a number of schools in the Ryde region over the years has given me the opportunity to teach children from Kindergarten to Year 6. This has given me a deep appreciation for how they interact at different ages and how age-appropriate our ethics curriculum is. Across all primary ages, ethics classes provide a safe and friendly environment for students to express themselves, as there are no right or wrong answers. I very much enjoy teaching ethics because the children are encouraged to think freely and reason critically in expressing their opinions and ideas and to disagree respectfully, not just take what others say for granted. Engaging children this way in lively class discussions keeps me coming back for more!

What drew you to ethics volunteering?

I was looking for something to do after my retirement as a state operations manager in the Department of Education, where my responsibilities involved the regulatory compliance and assessment of early childhood education services in NSW. My earliest career role was an early childhood teacher, before I joined the NSW public service and diversified into areas of policy, child protection early intervention, funding and project management and regulatory compliance. Volunteering with Primary Ethics drew me back to my first role as a teacher and my experience as a manager. The big difference is working with people who want to do what they do and not because they are paid to do it!

What’s your response to winning the Kinghorn Award?

I am very humbled and honoured to receive this award as I know there are many other worthy nominees. I accept this award on behalf of all the Ryde region volunteers, especially the coordinators, as without their support and contribution I would not be able to do my job.

Thank you to the all Primary Ethics staff who are always there to help, support and guide me and answer my many questions, sometimes many times!

Primary Ethics discussion rules

This year, the six ethics class rules have been replaced by five discussion rules. In this short video, trainer, ethics teacher and curriculum author Kelby Mason talks us through those rules.

First some important context: these discussion rules are for stages 1, 2 and 3 (which is Years 1- 6). They aren’t for Kindy or secondary students (who have separate rules and guidelines).

Why have we updated the rules?

We now call them discussion rules as they are primarily a roadmap for the type of discussion we want to see in all ethics lessons. This name will help students see how they’re different to the school rules and any classroom behaviour rules you might have.
We’ve reduced them to five to help students focus on what’s most important.
We’ve clarified the language to make it as meaningful as possible to today’s children.

The rules are displayed in every class and referred to regularly throughout the lesson.Why’s that?The rules are our important grounding tool and roadmap for helping create a genuine community of inquiry.

When teachers notice a student – or the entire class – veering off course, they can point their attention to the relevant rule and remind them to follow it. If necessary at any point, teachers can start a discussion about a particular rule and our reasons for following it.

What are the ethics discussion rules?

Only one person speaks at a time.
Pay attention to the person who is speaking.
Build on other people’s ideas.
Speak to other students, not just to the teacher.
No put downs.

‘Bump’ does ethics

A number of Primary Ethics volunteers and staff noticed during the New Year break that Bump, a popular Australian series which began streaming its third season on Stan on Boxing Day 2022, has incorporated an ethics lesson into its storyline.

So I tuned in.

By Susan Ardill, Communications Manager

Bump is a satirical comedy about two young people from very different families who have a baby together. In season 3, the parents, mother Oly and dad Santi, have separated but continue to co-parent. Their daughter is now in kindy at school and Oly is unhappy to discover she is being sent to scripture under the influence of Santi’s family. So when she bumps into another mother who is about to teach ethics, Oly asks if she can sit in and watch.

The Bump ethics lesson is situated firmly in comedic territory and serves the purpose of the episode’s overarching storyline, to highlight the differences in parenting style and family culture between Oly and Santi. The ethics volunteer is immediately set up as a ditzy caricature, confessing to being badly hungover and then not knowing how to respond when the children raise some difficult questions. So Oly responds to them instead – and in doing so, Oly (who does indeed become an ethics volunteer in a later episode) comes to some of her own realisations.

The appeal of the series, which bills itself as a comedy-drama, is in the way it addresses contemporary social life in Sydney, but with tongue in cheek.

Oly, on right, is unsure about the ethics teacher's approach.

Indeed, this scene held my attention – and not just because I’m an ethics volunteer.

Yet I am an ethics volunteer (and Primary Ethics staff member), so I immediately noticed what was unrealistic about this scene, as did everyone who mentioned it to us.

Unreal!

The unreality begins with Oly inviting herself along to the lesson! Our volunteers are all fully screened, trained and authorised by Primary Ethics, which is the sole approved provider to the Department of Education to teach ethics in schools. No other parent can come along on the spur of the moment – and then contribute to the lesson!
In a real ethics lesson, the teacher isn’t at the front of the class and the children don’t sit in rows. Instead, the children and teacher sit in a circle and build a community of inquiry together. Everyone can see everyone else and this helps with paying attention to whoever is speaking.
Teachers don’t ad lib or give their own answers to questions, as both the parents do in this scene. Our lessons – not just the stories that are told, but the questions that are asked – are fully scripted. When children ask questions in a real ethics lesson, they aren’t answered by the teacher, who keeps their views to themselves. Instead, the students are guided with further questions to respond to each other, build on each other’s ideas and answer each other’s questions. Of course, Bump is a tv show, so when the flummoxed teacher turns to Oly and lets her respond to the children, it’s a plot hook, but it’s important to state that this would never happen in a real ethics class.
One of the Primary Ethics discussion rules is ‘no putdowns’. When one of the children in this scene says to another “You’re an idiot”, the hapless teacher weakly says “Respectful discussion” – and nothing more. Ethics teachers are trained to manage situations exactly like this and have robust class management strategies to help students discuss and disagree respectfully. We also have a Classroom Support Team to help our volunteers with managing just this kind of classroom retort.

I like Bump and found this episode as a whole amusing. It’s good to see an Australian series which seems true to life for contemporary families – even though, as I’ve outlined, it’s not at all true to life when it comes to the Primary Ethics program in schools. I wouldn’t want parents – either those whose children already attend ethics or those who are contemplating choosing the ethics option – to come away from this episode with the impression that ethics lessons are really like this.

I hope it’s clear to the audience that in this scene, the emphasis is very much on entertainment.

To see a real ethics class in action, take a look here: https://primaryethics.com.au/about-ethics-classes/

By Susan Ardill, Primary Ethics Communications Manager

Alexa Stuart loved her ethics lessons when she was in primary school. A decade on, the 18-year-old is back at her former school teaching a new generation of ethics students.

In April, I taught my first ever ethics lesson! I had a gorgeous bunch of Year 2 kids at Lambton Public School, and – despite my nerves – it went really well. But actually it wasn’t my first ever ethics lesson. My first was in that very same school, in 2012 when I was just eight years old.
Our school was one of the earliest schools in Newcastle to start teaching ethics so for the latter part of my primary school years I was able to attend ethics classes. I remember loving it so much, I think I used to annoy my friends because after class I would just want to keep talking about the ethical dilemmas. I had so much to say and there was never enough time in ethics, so I just kept talking as we went out into the playground. And then when I got home, sometimes I would keep talking about it to my family over dinner.

One of my most vivid memories of ethics was in Year 5 or 6 when our ethics teacher stepped out of the circle and allowed us to moderate the discussion ourselves. She watched us as we tried to navigate how to take it in turns without putting up our hands. We were forced to talk to each other rather than just the teacher. I remember feeling so mature and that our teacher really respected us and trusted us.

Ethics lessons were a highlight of primary school for me. Last year I graduated from high school, and this year I’m taking a gap year, so I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to volunteer and become an ethics teacher!

When I started doing my ethics teacher training, I started remembering a lot of the topics and scenarios that we did when I was younger. I remembered talking about palm oil and the orangutans, about performance-enhancing drugs and whether it’s OK to hunt sharks after they have hurt humans. Back then, I thought that if I just thought about it hard enough, I could figure out the “correct” answer to all these tricky questions. Now I realise that the whole purpose of ethics is to learn the skills of
critical thinking and ethical problem-solving that help you to come to your answer, not the answer itself. It’s about the journey not the destination.

When I went back to my old school for my first lesson, I spoke to some of my old teachers. It was lovely to see them again and chat to them about what I’d been doing over the past few years. It felt so strange and nostalgic to be back at my primary school and I was very nervous, but once in the classroom I was surprised at how well the students listened to me. I was a bit worried that because I’m so young I would lack some authority and I was worried that the kids wouldn’t be fully engaged. But I needn’t have worried because they all seemed to have a great time. A lot of hands went up whenever I asked a question and despite them being a bit wriggly at times, they gave some very thoughtful (and cute!) answers.

It’s been strange to experience the other side of ethics classes, this time as the teacher. Having to remain neutral and lead the discussion rather than contributing my own thoughts can be a challenge. I feel very lucky to have experienced ethics as both the student and the teacher, and now I’m trying to convince some of my friends to volunteer, it’s such a great experience for young people!

Next year I’ll probably go to university, I think I will do development studies as I’m interested in social justice, development and inequality. Hopefully I’ll still have enough time to keep teaching ethics!

New Primary Ethics volunteer Jan Mottram found teaching her first lesson a rocky experience – but by the second week she was able to go with the flow and enjoy herself.

My first day of ethics teaching was quite overwhelming for me. I had learnt so much during the training, but once faced with a class of 22 eager kids from years 1 and 2, that all seemed to go out the window. I was a bit anxious, very hot and the mask didn’t help. [NB From 7 March, mask-wearing is no longer mandatory, though you will be supported to wear one if you choose to.

Watch our video for the top 5 tips on teach Ethics in a mask.

Lesson 1: The first session had an estimated 10-minute time frame. I think I did it in two. The questions that weren’t supposed to take much time seemed to go on for a while. The discussion about how many bones are in a hand took on a life of its own and I suggested they research it and let me know next week. Pairing the children just seemed to be an excuse for some of the kids to talk about anything but the topic. I was so keen to stay on script that I spent too much time reading my notes rather than watching what the class was doing. When the general consensus of the class was that it is okay to break rules because they are usually stupid, I found it hard to get them to listen to the kids who had a different view.

Leaving the Primary Ethics rules till the end of the lesson was not a good move for this class, but by the time I realised that I had run out of time. I left the lesson feeling disappointed in myself and as the afternoon wore on I found myself thinking of so many things I could have done better.

Lesson 2: I was determined to do better next time and my second lesson was a lot less stressful for me. I took it slower and went with the flow. I started by asking them if they had found out how many bones are in a hand. Unfortunately there were various answers even though they had all googled it or counted them. We went through the class rules again and I was able to refer to them when needed. Some of the children were very engaged in the lesson but some were obviously not interested at all. I later found out that they had not been outside at all during the day due to the rain. Being the last class of the day, I was lucky I had any interest at all. I had intended to have a break at some time to play a quick game of ‘Simon Says’ but when I checked my watch, we only had five minutes to go.

Despite my rocky start, I find I’m already enjoying the experience and am confident that lessons will continue to improve. Next week I plan to start the lesson with a game. I can only try.

Thanks to Dana for her encouraging words and the advice, ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself’. Very wise words.

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