9 Dec 2009: Ethics & Morality

This issue of ethics and morality is interesting to me. I read Case #2 regarding the situation in a developing country and oppression of women.

On one hand, I can see that the consultant might be better off executing the project inasmuch as it is one of the only ways for the women in the country to get education. However, it's tragic that the educational programming provided will be endorsing the misogynist regime. It's a difficult scenario to reconcile.

This discussion in class reminded me of my experience doing work in Pakistan for 3 years from 2005 - 2007. I was recruited as a Program Officer for USAID's Education Sector Reform Assistance (ESRA) Program. As I understood the initiative, we were mandated to provide literacy services to 100,000 people - primarily women during a 5 year period.

As I understood it, this program's intent was to educate women - particularly mothers - in order to improve opportunities for education for their children. I wholly supported this idea and I was happy to meet the participants in the program and find ways to document their stories for circulation among government leaders in the USA and in Pakistan.

Later, after I'd been working on the program for some time, I found out that this program was understood in Washington circles as the "Anti-Terrorism Bill." I found out also that the $100 million dollars I knew was earmarked for ESRA was part of a $3 Billion package from US taxpayers to the Pakistani government. Of that, the majority was earmarked for F-16 fighter planes. In reality, this project was to bolster America's strategy for the war in Afghanistan and Iran.

I realized that I was writing warm-fuzzies for the facade of a larger military agenda which wasn't really focused on Pakistani civilians at all. I was involved in just a small component of a much larger plan in that region. It made me question my role and the appropriateness of my work in an ethical and moral sense.

Tbis illuminates the reality of any instructional design endeavor. Education is always political. It behooves me and any other person involved to find out what politics are going on and, if those agendas aren't clear from the outset, to act with integrity according to one's personal morality when confronted with difficult challenges once on the inside.