An ethical dilemma

I write with my Course Leader’s head on, with thoughts inspired by reading and responding to Alison’s posting about ethics.

I am mid-ethical dilemma as we speak.  I am aware of a student who is not coping very well at the moment.  He has had a very poor education, and considers himself less equipped for the profession than his peers because of this, although he is very naturally talented within performing arts.  He has been attention-seeking recently at the start of my ballet classes, and, as I know him well, have let it pass and he has settled down.  I was of course concerned that he did not seem to be in a good place, even though he achieved 6 pirouettes in my class once he was settled.

He is required to prepare a monologue for a forthcoming assessment, and a song.  I was made aware by another student in his group of the difficulty he has had finding a monologue, and that he has real reading problems.  This student felt that the young man in question had not been given enough learning support whilst at the college.  She also felt that the acting teacher responsible for the assessment should have given this student help with finding a monologue as he lacks the required knowledge and literacy skills to be independent at the moment.

I spoke to him today as I was made aware by a colleague that he had had a meltdown on Friday and it was quite likely that he would not attend his singing and acting assessments.  We had a chat, and he explained that he had tried to read the play from which his monologue (that in the end another teacher had given him, and he had learned) had come, but he had really struggled with it.  I am aware that it is very likely that the teacher/assessor will ask about the play, and when we discussed this he said that he would probably answer that he had not read the play.  I have the play on video, so offered to lend it to him so that he had a visual and aural understanding of the play, but also suggested that he should give reading the play his best shot.  I also suggested that perhaps rather than saying he had not watched it, he could reply that he had tried to read the play, but, as he had struggled with the reading, he had found another way to research the work so that he was more aware of the plot.

I am really aware that my colleague may well accuse me of undermining her, but I have thought long and hard about this and feel that actually my responsibility in this instance is to the student, and that it is not about my colleague.  She has taken the stance that he is lazy and unorganised, and whilst this may partly be the case, I am more concerned by the fact that emotionally he is overwrought and feeling (as he articulated today) like a social outcast due to his lack of knowledge.  I have tried to give him a coping strategy for this and suggested that he starts to look at musicals and plays on television and youtube, as it is there for the taking, rather than punishing himself for not being able to read a play.  I will have to ‘defend’ myself with my colleague should this arise, but I feel quite strongly that I had to support the student in this case.  I also understand how my (quite fragile) colleague might feel, but can only hope that she can see the bigger picture and realise it is not about her.

What are your thoughts about this?