Country: Canada

Organization: Pearson Ethics Initiative, a program of the Lester B Pearson College of the Pacific.

Idea: To research, write and publish a book called The Ethics Cookbook and produce a complementary documentary called The Ethics Interviews. The Ethics Cookbook uses the familiar cookbook format to present ‘recipes’ for understanding. It will combine philosophical rigor with cookbook approachability through compelling stories, clear explanations, and useful suggestions and activities for students, teachers or parents. The Ethics Interviews uses a documentary format to interview youth featured in the book in order to draw in a greater range of individuals interested in the subject matter. The film combines interviews, images and music of the subjects’ home, relevant news items, and other visual aids to understanding.

How do you do it: 1. Introduction: An interested school group or youth organization is contacted by students in the Pearson Ethics Initiative. Introduction to the idea of forming an Ethics Initiative takes place. The Ethics Interviews film would be a valuable asset at this stage.

2. Facilitation: Students at the Pearson Ethics Initiative then follow up with presentations and/or additional resources to facilitate the development of an Ethics Initiative at the school or youth organization. The Ethics Cookbook would play a key role at this stage.

3. Realization: A new Ethics Initiative is realized. New Ethics Initiatives are encouraged to follow the same three stage process. Additional interviews could be produced.

Innovation: Fundamentally, the model is simple and intuitive. The three stages within an Initiative (learning, articulating, and promoting) are natural stages people go through with respect to ethics. This model simply formalizes them and provides a simple, flexible structure for students and teachers. The three stages of replicating Initiatives (introduction, facilitation and realization) is also an effective strategy which allows students to support other students as one way of promoting their own ethical values. Finally, with students from over 84 nations participating in the program, a unique global impact of the resources is assured.

Impact: Canada is a pluralistic society which depends on the understanding and appreciation of both ethical diversity and the fundamental moral unity which makes peaceful diversity possible. But where do Canadians learn about ethical diversity? The Ethics Initiative is a process which allows students and teachers to feel safe in taking these opportunities. The result is a reintroduction of the language of ethics as the basis of small group discussion about moral issues, school based publications about ethical decision making, and community based projects based on moral values.

Ethical Action: The following report is by a student in the Pearson Ethics Initiative outlining the way in which they promoted ethics in the community. The Cookbook and film would assist in classroom visits such as this. I did my individual project in Finland in a comprehensive school for students at the ninth grade. My topics were “What is ethics?” and “Values and principles in the classroom”. I talked about values and principles and how those affect our lives, then I let them divide themselves into groups. Their task was to think of values that do (or should) guide their classroom). After they had few values on the board, we were able to begin a broader discussion on ethics, in the context of their own values.

Replication: We will achieve replication by making these resources available to the broader educational community, through our existing networks such as the United World Colleges, the Round Square Schools, and Canadian school districts across the country. The materials themselves will encourage replication of the Ethics Initiative within these contexts.

Sustainability: One of the goals of the Cookbook will be to encourage readers to develop their own discussion groups and organizations that focus on ethics and understanding. In this way, the project will act as a catalyst for the creation of small groups around the world: a bottom-up, grassroots strategy that will be self-sustaining. Financially, the start-up cost for discussion groups is minimal, and this will allow greater sustainability of the key elements of the intiative.

Position in the Ethics Mosaic of Solutions:

Factor: Otherness

Principle: Developing self-awareness and interconnectedness