Dilemma: Right vs. Right
Whose Story is This?
Tom is a teacher in the local school. His principal asks him to write an article about the school's character education program to be submitted for publication in a journal. Tom spends some time on the article, incorporating his and other teacher's experiences as this new program unfolded.
After the article is written, the assistant superintendent of the school district asks Tom to bring the article to her office, so that she can proofread it. The assistant superintendent makes good editing suggestions, but she also rewrites parts of Tom's article. She changes the article's substance, substituting what she would have liked to have happened for what actually did happen. Through her changes, the article no longer portrays how the experience of organizing and taking part in the new character education program actually felt for Tom and his fellow teachers. The assistant superintendent says that she will return the final copy of the article to Tom shortly.
Tom is angry. After all, he has been asked to write this article, not the assistant superintendent. And while her editorial suggestions are good, the article as she has rewritten it no longer illustrates the actual experience of Tom and the other teachers. It is not true.
On the one hand, Tom knows that it is correct to be loyal to the assistant superintendent, who presumably has greater educational expertise, knowledge, and experience. He also wants to be a team player within his school system, and to avoid any future conflict with this administrator.
He also knows that it is right to submit an accurate and true account of the challenges and dynamics of the character education program to the journal. Possibly other teachers and administrators who might read the article will want to use his school's example, following their steps but avoiding their mistakes when establishing a similar program. So it is important that the article accurately portray what happened, not what might have happened.
What should Tom do?
Note: This and other dilemmas on this site come to you without their real-life resolutions. We encourage you to think for yourself about how you might resolve them, since the nature of each dilemma is highly individualistic. In sharing these dilemmas, we do not endorse them in any way, but rather offer them for your consideration.
