Pressure to place a child above level and two requests that breach policy
A teacher at a private Chinese-language centre in Shanghai teaches 12 children aged 8–11 in a Saturday HSK preparation class. A parent wants her daughter, who scored 58% on a mock HSK 2 and cannot yet write 50 characters, placed in the HSK 4 class starting next month because she needs to be challenged. The centre director says the parent has paid for 60 lessons and tells the teacher to make it work, adding that parents are customers. The same week, a colleague asks for a scanned PDF of the commercial textbook the centre uses, and another parent offers the teacher 400 RMB per hour for private lessons at her home. The teacher's contract prohibits private tutoring of current students, and the centre's licence requires the use of licensed materials.
1. Identify the ethical issues and the stakeholders, and rank the issues by seriousness. Justify the ranking.
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The issues are: (1) a placement recommendation that may not be in the child's educational interest; (2) pressure from a manager to override professional judgement; (3) a request to reproduce a licensed textbook; (4) an offer of private tutoring that breaches the employment contract; and (5) the wider duty to the other students and to the centre's legal compliance.
The placement issue is most serious because it directly affects a child's learning and wellbeing. A student at mock HSK 2 with limited character writing placed in HSK 4 is likely to experience failure, anxiety and withdrawal, and the parents will have paid for a course that cannot meet its stated outcome. The textbook copying is next, because it is a legal and licensing breach that exposes the centre, not just the individual. The private tutoring offer is a contractual and boundary issue, serious but more easily resolved. The director's pressure is the enabling condition for the first two, so it must be addressed directly rather than avoided. Ranking by harm to the child, legal risk, then contractual risk is defensible and gives the teacher a clear order of action.
2. How should the teacher handle the conversation with the parent and the director? Provide the key moves and the evidence to bring.
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With the parent, the teacher should lead with the child's interests and use concrete evidence: the mock score, the writing sample, the HSK 4 sample paper, and a short comparison of the vocabulary and character load in HSK 2 and HSK 4. The key move is to offer a realistic pathway rather than a refusal: for example, a bridge course with two extra character-writing sessions per week, a re-test in six weeks, and a written progress plan. The teacher should ask what challenge means for the parent, because it may mean faster pace or more speaking, and those can be met within level. The teacher should not promise a placement she believes will fail.
With the director, the teacher should present the same evidence and the risk in institutional terms: a child who fails HSK 4 damages retention and reputation, and a written recommendation protects the centre if the parent complains. The teacher should propose a trial placement with a defined review date and a clear exit criterion, which gives the director a commercial answer without falsifying the professional judgement. The teacher should keep a written record of the recommendation and the director's decision.
3. What should the teacher do about the textbook request and the private tutoring offer, and what should be documented?
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For the textbook, the teacher should decline to share the scan and explain the licence briefly and without judgement. She should redirect the colleague to the licensed digital copy or the centre's resource folder, and, if the centre lacks enough copies, raise that with the director as a resourcing issue. For the tutoring offer, she should decline politely, citing the contract, and suggest an alternative: the centre's own small-group or holiday course, or a referral to a teacher who does not teach the child. She should not accept gifts or payments that create an obligation.
Documentation should include the placement recommendation and the evidence given to the parent and director, the date and outcome of the conversation, the textbook request and her response, and the tutoring request and her decline. The teacher should keep these records factual and neutral, and should ask the director to confirm the placement decision in writing. This is not bureaucratic: it protects the child, the teacher and the centre if a complaint arises later. It also models the professional boundary that the teacher's duty is to the student's learning, not to a sale.