1. Welcome to
Greenway High School’s
newest elective offering:
Contemporary Ethics & Morality

2. What is this course about?
• As promised in the course description:
– We will analyze and evaluate real-life, every day
issues that will challenge you to think deeply and
creatively regarding situations or issues that prevent
ethical and/or moral dilemmas or challenges to us
individually, in social or functional groups like peer
networks or families, in culture systems, as a country,
or even possibly as a collective group of world citizens.

3. By the end of this course, you will:
– Be able to obtain and use information to inform and
extend your opinions regarding dilemmas with social
ethics and moral questions in America today.
– Develop and demonstrate effective speaking,
communication, and critical thinking skills.
– Participate meaningfully in processes of group
learning, planning, discussion, and decision-making.
– Identify ethical concepts and moral principles and
apply those concepts and principles to different
areas of human social conduct.

4. Here’s an example of an ethical dilemma,
as you will be presented in class:
• The mood at an area high school is tense with anticipation. For the first time in
many, many years, the varsity baseball team has made it to the state tournament.
The community is excited too, and everyone is making plans to attend the big
event next Friday night. Bob, the varsity coach, has been waiting for years to field
such a team. Speed, teamwork, balance: they've got it all. Only one more week to
practice, he tells his team, and not a rule can be broken. Everyone must be at
practice each night, at the regularly scheduled time: No Exceptions.

5. The dilemma continues…
• Brad and Mike, two of the team's starters, receive detention at school
due to excessive tardiness at school and have to serve their detention
after school, as assigned by the principal. From Brad and Mike’s
perspective, they're indispensable to the team, they ARE guys who will
bring victory for the team and school. They decide—why, no one will
ever know—to skip detention to go to the baseball practice as required.
The principal is furious. Brad and Mike have deliberately disobeyed a
school policy. The rule says they should now be suspended for a day. If
the principal follows the rule, Brad and Mike will not play in the first
tournament game. But the whole team is depending on them. What
should the principal do?

6. Picture Analysis…another sample activity
• What moral dilemma is the picture addressing?
• How can you compare the perspective presented in the picture to what you
already know about the issue being addressed?
• Do you agree with the picture’s perspective regarding this issue? If so, why? If
not, what other solutions or perspectives might you suggest?

7. Sample List of Topics/Issues We
Can Address in Class
• Your voice/opinion counts…we’ll take your top 5 from this list in the next
5 minutes on PollEverywehere at www.pollev.com/mrflo
• Digital Citizenship and the Role of Social Media
• Television and Advertising
• Racism and Discrimination
• Crime and Violence & Punisments
• Public Education
• Parenting & Family Styles
• Universal Health Care
• US Immigration Policies
• US Foreign Aid & Policy
• Capital Punishment
• Abortion
• GLBT Rights (Marriage, Unions, etc.)
• Others to add?? Suggest your own by texting it in…