Promoting Flourishing in Hard Times: Theoretical Reflections on Ethics of Care in Distance Learning

Although the scientific literature in the educational field has thoroughly investigated the ethical dimension of distance learning, few studies are currently focusing attention on the ethical issues that characterize emergency remote teaching and learning. And when this question is addressed, the ethical dimensions that emerged mainly concern the equity in access to educational technologies, and cheating behaviors, especially during the assessment phase. This document aims to present a theoretical reflection on the ethics of care in distance learning, with specific attention to emergency remote teaching and learning, where teachers must be attentive to both the technical and the human aspects by implementing a teaching approach inspired by the ethics of care for the construction of the individual. The dimensions that characterize this construct—attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness—allow to understand how an ethically oriented learning environment promotes the flourishing of the learners and their well-being and not just the mere passage of information and instructions: their engagement, rather than simple participation; the birth of learning communities, rather than just aggregation; and a protected space where everyone cultivates their personal growth to feel good with the others, rather than a place of competition and selfaffirmation. Since the ethics of care establishes that ethics is something that aims at a good life lived with and for the others in just institutions, it invites professionals to promote a caring posture not only oriented to the individual good, but also to the others’ and institutional good. Specifically, in emergency remote teaching and learning, this means to be present anyway and stay in a relationship with the pupils and the families, not making them feel abandoned.