Tidbits from Tuscaloosa: Creating a Culture of Character in Schools

By Shelby Clark

A few weeks ago, I attended the “Character through Communities” conference at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama—“Roll Tide!” (as I learned to say while I was there). This was my first time in Alabama and really my first time anywhere in the “Deep South” barring southern Florida (which, I think, many would argue doesn’t count). This conference, facilitated by the University of Alabama, the Hope Institute, and Samson University, was held in order to help educators, academics, administrators and others think more about how we can facilitate character education in schools, with a particular focus on the role of relationships and communities in fostering student character. What were some take-aways for all who care about fostering character or social emotional learning in students?

1. We are cultivating character in children, not assuming that character is something children innately have or do not have. Educators, administrators, researchers, parents, and more are planting the seeds and creating the right conditions in the gardens for students to grow into people of character. Clifton Taulbert, the opening keynote speaker, civil rights activist, and author of Eight Habits of the Heart, stated that “we can all be cultivators, we can all do something to make a difference [in the lives of children.].. Don’t remove yourself from the system.” 

Keynote speaker and character scholar Marvin Berkowitz called upon the Hebrew saying “tikkun olam” or “to heal the world,” explaining that educators have an “ethical obligation to improve the world, to make it a better place.” He said, “We are in the world changing business.” Rather than a garden, Berkowitz compared schools to a petri dish. If we want schools to be places where children’s character can flourish, then we need to be providing the right nutrients for character to grow. 

2. Administrators should create a school culture focused on character. One presenter insisted that administrators have a responsibility to create the school culture, and in particular a school culture focused on character. They asserted, “Principals have to carry the flag.” In particular, the conference emphasized that principals have to be role models of character, in essence “walking the walk” rather than “talking the talk.” In a later panel of school leaders, one leader mentioned that a school’s culture should feel like the building “is giving you a big hug.” 

The administrators furthermore emphasized that creating a culture of character in schools is not about making quick changes, but rather about small changes over time. One speaker referred to the book Atomic Habits, which talks about how small, 1% changes can add up over time to give you extraordinary results; it is the same with school cultures. Administrators need to celebrate their small wins and look at failures as opportunities for growth. Marvin Berkowitz similarly commented that administrators and educators need to “Dream big, think small, and act now.” 

Ideas suggested for how to focus your school culture on character included:

• Make sure you have a structure and a plan regarding how to implement character in your school - “Just talking about it is not enough.”

• Keep in mind that one size doesn’t fit all.

• Provide protected time for character education (e.g., a character education class, advisory, etc.).

• Secure resources for character education.

• Discuss character education with staff and other stakeholders (e.g., in meetings).

• Be intentional in your hiring and team selection (e.g., do they model character?).

3. Define your character education core values. Several of the presentations throughout the conference pointed out that there needs to be greater focus on defining and understanding core values. One presenter mentioned that, if a school team tells him that they want to help form productive citizens, his follow up questions include, “1) Do you have an operational definition of what a productive citizen is?; 2) Do you have initiatives to get to that?; and 3) How are you measuring that your students are getting there?” Drs. Ted Savage and Hank Staggs, keynote speakers, noted that having a common language regarding core values across a school system allows students to know that the expectations will look exactly the same in each of their classrooms. Ultimately, such uniformity helps erase confusion and makes more time for learning. Drs. Brendan White and Tanya Crockett likewise found that shared, common language around character is a staple of Character.org National Schools of Character.

Ideas suggested for how to define core values included: 

• Everyone makes a list regarding which values are most important to them. Once those lists are narrowed down to the top values of the group, everyone is asked to describe each value, and these definitions are compared in terms of overlap.

• Begin with an existing framework of values (such as that of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues). Have your staff and faculty narrow these down to their most important values, then have the parent community narrow these values down, then have your students narrow these values down again in order to find your final core values. 

• For younger children, ask them to vote for the behaviors they might prefer, rather than which values they prefer (see picture). 

Assessment of elementary age students’ core values, presented by Ted Savage and Hank Staggs,

4. In the words of Marvin Berkowitz: “Relationships, relationships, relationships.” Clifton Taulbert noted that during his childhood growing up poor in the South, he had a variety of “porch people” in his community who felt responsible for him and helped him achieve success. He described one aunt who stood on her front porch every morning in order to hail down the school bus so he could go to school— otherwise it might have passed by. Taulbert quoted Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who said, “No one accomplishes anything alone.” State superintendent Eric Mackety further remarked that “children are children,” pointing out that they all want hugs, they all want adults to ask them how they’re doing, and they want to be able to ask adults how they’re doing. 

Ideas suggested for developing relationships included:

• Creating teacher-run interest-based clubs that students can join. Teachers are then passionate about running these clubs and can share their passions with students and develop relationships with them.

• Engage in icebreakers, such as showing each other something you care about on your phone.

• As in this video, print out school rosters and have the entire staff write down how much they know about each student in the school.

• Create a “house” system to build relationships amongst students. 

• Have every classroom or homeroom adopt an adult in the building. 

5. Involve ALL of your stakeholders. Without the involvement of staff, faculty (or “staffulty,” as one presenter called them), parents, and students, several presenters pointed out that it is hard to fully implement character education in schools. One administrator emphasized, “if you haven’t made relationships with your bus drivers, you need to do that!” Marvin Berkowitz noted that administrators should approach their role as one of servant leadership towards their staff and faculty, adopting an attitude of humility, forgiveness, gratitude, empowerment, foresight, stewardship, bravery, and noble purpose. He joked, “If you are a servant leader and help every teacher in your school become the best teacher they can be, then you [administrators] can sit in your office and play Angry Birds all day.” 

Ideas suggested for involving stakeholders included: 

• Conduct individual check-ins with staff.

• Visit local stakeholders (e.g. with parents at the local playground). 

• Involve parents and community members in defining a school’s core values.  

• Establish a parent advisory for the principal, allow everyone to add agenda items, and, in particular, make sure that at least one of the agenda items is about character education.

• Add staff members to the school leadership team.

• Create student ambassadors.

• Offer character oriented professional development for stakeholders.

• Empower your stakeholders and honor their voice.

• Allow character education at your school to become a collaborative project. 

Of course, these are not the only ways to ensure children grow in their character, but they certainly offer some ways to get started when thinking about adopting a whole school character model. 

For more information about adopting a whole-school model of character education based on The Good Project’s core ideas and concepts, visit the link here. Let us know what your school is doing to implement character education efforts in the comments below! 

The Good Project Core Concepts: Excellence

by Lynn Barendsen

At work, when and how do you consider questions about excellence? Some further questions that might come to mind about excellence at work are:

• Do you have time to reflect and consider the quality of your work?

• Do you answer to an immediate supervisor, and does their opinion impact your understanding of excellence at work?  

• Do you supervise others, and do you regularly discuss what is and isn’t quality work with them?

• How do you do your “best” work?

• Does your current work allow you to make the most of your skills?

• What is the relationship between high quality work and “good work”?

At The Good Project, “good work” is about three “Es”: ethics (contributing to the world in a positive way and doing no harm), engagement (meaningful, fulfilling), and excellence (high quality). This blog focuses on excellence: what we mean by this term, how it has evolved since our research began, and particular contexts to take into account when reflecting upon and discussing excellence in today’s climate.

During our original research of the nature of “good work” in the mid 1990s, we identified practitioners to interview via a process of recommendations, based predominantly on excellence. Each time we began to study a new profession (genetics, journalism, medicine or law, for example), we would conduct a series of informant interviews, talking with experts in that field. These “gatekeepers” would help us to identify emerging issues in that particular profession; they also helped us to identify established or emerging leaders. When we asked about leaders in the field, we asked only about excellent, or high quality, work; we didn’t ask for the most ethical leaders, nor did we ask about those who found meaning in their work. In other words, when we first began our research, “excellence” meant expertise: high-achieving, well-known, respected work. We wanted to talk with those who were leaders in their various professions in terms of high quality work (the other two “Es” were identified as a result of the data gathered through conversations with “excellent” workers).

In the decades since this research, our understandings of excellence in work have evolved in multiple ways. Today, we believe that it’s critical to take into account how personal standards for excellence may differ from one another. For example, someone who has been working in a particular field for decades will have developed a level of expertise not possible for a novice; someone raised with wealth and privilege will have a different approach to work than someone struggling with food insecurity and lack of housing. There are many other examples of difference with respect to the factors that impact how individuals approach their work. If we truly want to encourage excellence in work (not to mention ethics, engagement and other elements of good work we have yet to identify), everyone must feel motivated and supported, and we must recognize that what works for some doesn’t work for others. Often, excellence is our individual “best” effort, determined by any number of factors, at a particular moment in time.

Although an individual “best” on any given day can shift, what’s important are the standards to which we hold ourselves. We bring varied notions of excellence to the table based on a number of factors, including cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, neurological and other differences. That said, there are of course standards of “excellence” that are important to keep in mind. For example, a surgeon’s “personal best” on a given day is not enough if it puts a patient’s life at risk. If she is tired and not able to meet her profession’s standards, perhaps her personal best on that day involves rest and recuperation rather than work in the operating room. Importantly, this is why we also have professional standards that must be met, so that is not just up to individual, personal judgment.

On The Good Project, we have come to believe that the concept of excellence - like the full good work framework - is:

• attentive to the particular qualities and behaviors we want to cultivate in ourselves and others; 

• more than meeting a particular benchmark (like a grade) and is attentive to complexity;

• regularly reflected upon for insight and growth; 

• guided by personal values and is context specific but open to flexibility (e.g., excellence as a nurse looks different than it does for a journalist, a restaurant worker, or a teacher)

An additional important question, especially considering the current mental health crisis: is striving for the “best” necessarily a good thing? As Jennifer Breheny Wallace has highlighted in her bestselling book, Never Enough, optimizing performance has become toxic and dangerous in an achievement culture within a particular subset of the population. (Some solutions to this toxicity are suggested in this interview with the author.) Also crucial to any conversation about excellence is an understanding about difficulty and even, at times, failure: how do individuals respond to obstacles in their work? As a recent article on Failing Well explains, “intelligent” failure is common with innovation, and if learning happens as a result of a failed experience, the net result may in fact be positive.

When we work with high school students, we have had to make clear that we are not insisting that every student be “excellent” every day and in every way. But where and how these lines are drawn are important topics of conversation, for educators, for students, for school communities as a whole and of course, for families.

Some questions we continue to ponder:

• Does all work have to be “excellent,” or can it be really good or great? Does this vary by the work carried out? What is the relationship between “perfection” and high quality work? Do you need to be an expert to do excellent work? What is the relationship between competence and high quality work?

• How are our expectations of “excellence” connected to the number of people impacted by the work carried out? Is there a difference, for example, in what we expect of a rocket scientist or an architect because the work they do can potentially help or harm a large number of people?

• Do we consider the years of training required to do a particular type of work, or the number of years someone has been in a particular position, in our expectations about excellence? In other words, do we expect more in some ways of a lawyer than a school bus driver, or more of a chef who has been in the kitchen for 15 years than one who has been working for 5?

• How are our understandings of excellence connected to the responsibilities of a particular type of work?

• What are the differences between the process of excellence and the product of the work? Consider, for example, the “journey” towards excellence versus the actual product of “being” excellent. Sometimes failing along the way is a positive process, as it allows for innovation. What are the important distinctions between the process of work and the end result of those efforts?

Below are some resources from The Good Project that you might use to explore excellence:

• A video describing the three Es of excellence, ethics and engagement

• “The Meaning of Grades” Dilemma

• “When In Doubt, Make it Excellent” Dilemma

• Famous Failures Activity

• What is Excellent Work Activity

What is Harkness, and How Do You Teach It?

What is Harkness, and How Do You Teach It? 

Shelby Clark

I started my first day at the GCI Summit and Seminar for Educators observing the Seminar for Educators– nine educators from all over the world who had come together to learn more about the "GCI Method." GCI– Global Citizens Initiative– brings together student fellows and educators from all over the world each summer for a week to learn more about Design Thinking, student-centered learning (the Harkness Method), and intercultural citizenship and human connectivity. Student fellows leave the week prepared to engage in a nine-month "glocal" project oriented around making changes on a UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). As some of you might not be familiar with this pedagogy, I wanted to share some reflections for you to think about as you consider bringing Harkness pedagogy into your classrooms. 

Educators spent their first day at the Summit learning about Design Thinking and, on the second day, engaged in learning about Harkness as a student-centered discussion pedagogy. What were some take-aways? 

How is Harkness different from a Socratic Seminar? 

Figure 1.

Schrodt, K., Smith, L., FitzPatrick, E., & Liu, J. (2023). Facilitating Critical Discussion of Picturebooks Through Socratic Seminars in a Kindergarten Classroom. Early Childhood Education Journal, 1-18. Retrieved here. 

In a Socratic Seminar, students may speak to one another. However, more often than not, the teacher is still in charge of the discussion and has an end goal in mind for where they want the conversation to go. For the most part, students still look to the teacher to guide the discussion. 

In a Harkness discussion, teachers do not have a content-related end goal in mind– students should be the leaders of the conversation. They should not be looking at the teacher but should instead be looking at each other. 

See the image above. In the first, a more traditional Socratic Seminar, the discussion is continually guided by the teacher. In contrast, in the second, the kindergarten class has moved towards a Harkness discussion, wherein the conversation is equally distributed among all class members. 

Facilitator Molly Simmons noted that teachers should think of Harkness as "learning as play." 

What's happening at the table? What are students discussing? 

Students are analyzing a text, whether a book, an article, a podcast, a media clip, etc. Molly Simmons noted that you, as the teacher, must be "VERY intentional about the texts that you choose." Preparation for a Harkness teacher is:

• Finding useful and evocative texts for the table.

• Annotating the texts.

• Figuring out what questions you have about the texts as a teacher.

• Determining your questions for students. 

Students should be prepared for class by reviewing and annotating this text. Ms. Simmons noted that students often learn how to annotate a text through Harkness. Anytime they make a point and do not provide evidence to back it up, teachers can ask, "Where do you SEE that in the text?" Through such questions, students begin to mark the evidence they need in their texts. 

Ms. Simmons also noted that there were several other ways that she prompted students to annotate their texts, including asking students: 

• "What are words you don't get? Note those"

• "Show me the page where you talked to the text the most."

• To "Note questions in the margins." 

• "Show me how you're preparing, and I'll give you an 'in' tomorrow in the conversation." 

She stated that this last prompt was particularly useful for quieter students who have not yet figured out how to enter the conversation.  

Notably, Ms. Simmons commented that, above all, it is about letting students bring to the table what they are noticing and what will help the students come to a deeper understanding of the text. She noted, "What you get curious about is what you remember,"-- reiterating that Harkness is about the teacher putting their ego aside and allowing students to come to their own realizations. 

How do you involve students who are not participating? What about students who talk too much? 

The idea of tracking the Harkness discussion was discussed several times throughout the day (learn more here). During a discussion, Harkness teachers often draw a Harkness table on a sheet of paper, mark the students around the table, and then draw lines across the table to indicate who is talking when to whom. Teachers sometimes include reference letters to tell if a student has referenced the text, asked a question, brought someone else into the conversation, and more. 

At the Harkness table, students who talk too much are often called "Harkness warriors." Ms. Simmons observed that these students often need to practice their listening skills and tend to "LOVE tracking the conversation." 

The tracking strategy can also work well for larger classes, where not all students can participate in a Harkness discussion simultaneously. Seminar Educators discussed using a fishbowl strategy with 12 students engaged in the Harkness discussion, while another eight students tracked the conversation from the outside. Then, if time permits, the teacher could "flip flop" so the other students could discuss – or, if not, they could periodically pause until the next class for the other students to contribute. 

How do you start a Harkness class? 

Do students sit down and start discussing? Ms. Simmons shared that perhaps in older grades (11th & 12th), she might sit down and ask, "Where do you guys want to start?" Otherwise, Ms. Simmons and the other Harkness instructors at the Seminar all shared ways to help open classes with icebreakers or additional ways to "ground" their students in their texts. 

These included: 

• Pair and share, then share out with the table 

• Read the line of the text that impacted you the most 

• Put up a quote on the board that we should dive into 

• Do a quick reading quiz 

• Draw your favorite scene on the board 

How do you assess Harkness? 

Ms. Simmons was clear that "if part of your grade is discussion, it needs to be explicit." One way to create an assessment for Harkness discussed was to develop a clear rubric, such as using the 22 traits of a Harkness classroom to outline student expectations. 

In particular, it was noted that teachers often need to be explicit with younger grade students (e.g., 9th graders), such as stating that they must speak 3 times per class. While this might encourage statements such as "I agree," Ms. Simmons noted that it's often okay for students to start this way as it gets them normalized towards speaking at the table. 

If teachers need more objective assessments, Ms. Simmons suggested reading quizzes or creating precise 1-5 rating scales on your rubrics (such as ratings for how students move the discussion forward). 

Summing Up

Ultimately, Ms. Simmons noted that Harkness "comes down to being an exercise in listening." She will call out students for repeating something another student says and does not want students to think that "loud is right." She similarly remains firm that Harkness is rooted in texts. She noted, "It's debate when no one is analyzing the text"-- not Harkness. Finally, Harkness means finding ways to create the psychological safety students need to participate at the table. Ms. Simmons spoke about "giving inroads" at the table for quieter students, teaching students not to call one another out but instead focus on learning how to help one another, doing warm-ups together, learning phrases such as "What I'm really interested in…" or "What I'm really curious about…" to respond to one another and more. 

Later on my first day at the Summit, I watched student fellows engage in a Harkness warm-up with another Harkness teacher. The goal was for the student fellows to get through the entire alphabet with a fellow saying one letter and passing it off to another fellow without calling on one another; they needed to use body language or other means to indicate who could go next. If fellows spoke at the same time, they had to restart. These fellows had only known each other for a few days, yet just through this brief warm-up, I could see the magic of Harkness beginning to happen. Students laughed; they attended to each other's body language carefully; they listened intently. They didn't want to stop, sure that they just needed one more time to get it right. They were already joined as a group in search of a common goal. By the time they actually pulled out their texts for their Harkness discussion, they were ready to go.

CHAT GPT: FIRST MUSINGS

Howard Gardner © 2023

How will ChatGPT—and other Large Language Instruments—affect our educational system—and our broader society? How should they?

I’m frequently asked questions like these—and they are much on my mind.

Something akin to ChatGPT—human or super-human levels of performance—has long been portrayed in science fiction: I’m familiar with the American, British, French, and Russian varieties. But few observers expected such excellent performance so fast, so impressively, so threatening (or enabling)—depending on your stance.

As suggested by historian Yuval Harari, we may be approaching the end of the Anthropocene era.

We can anticipate that large language instruments—like Open AI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E—will continually improve.

They will be able to do anything that can be described, captured in some kind of notation. Already they are able to conduct psychotherapy with patients, write credible college application essays, and create works of visual art or pieces of music in the style of well-known human creators as well as in newly invented styles. Soon one of their creations may be considered for the Nobel Prize in physics or literature, the Pulitzer Prize for musical composition or journalism.

Of course, superior AI performance does not—and need not—prevent human beings from engaging in such activities. We humans can still paint, compose music, sculpt, compete in chess, conduct psychotherapy sessions—even if AI systems turn out to outperform us in some or most ways.

Open AI introduced ChatGPT 3 in 2020 and DALL-E in 2021

We can also work in conjunction with AI programs. A painter may ask DALL-E to create something, after which the painter may alter what the program has furnished. A researcher may present ChatGPT with a hypothesis and ask the system to come up with ways to test that hypothesis—after which the researcher can carry out one or more of these approaches herself. Such activities can alternate, going back and forth between the human provision and the computational program.

We fear what could go wrong—and rightly so. AI systems like ChatGPT have not undergone a million-plus years of evolutionary history (including near extinction or sudden vaults in skill); such recently devised systems do not inhabit our planet in the same way that the hominid species has. They are not necessarily—and certainly not existentially—afraid of cataclysmic climate change, or nuclear war, or viruses that prove fatal to homo sapiens. Indeed, such systems could spread misinformation rapidly and thereby contribute to destructive climate change and the probability of nuclear war (recall “The Doomsday Machine” featured in the dystopic movie Dr. Strangelove). These destructive outcomes are certainly possible, although (admittedly) such calamities might happen even had there been no digital revolution.

And what about the effects of Large Language Instruments on our schools, our broader educational system?

Many fear that systems like ChatGPT will make it unnecessary for students to learn anything, since ChatGPT can tell them everything they might want or need to know—almost instantaneously and almost always accurately (or at least as accurately as an 20th century encyclopedia or today’s “edition” of Wikipedia!). I think that AI will have a huge impact on education, but not in that way.

Now that machines are rivalling or even surpassing us in so many ways, I have an ambitious and perhaps radical recommendation. What education of members of our species should do—increasingly and thoughtfully—is to focus on the human condition: what it means to be human, what our strengths and frailties are, what we have accomplished (for good or evil) over many centuries of biological and cultural evolution, what opportunities are afforded by our stature and our status, what we should avoid, what we should pursue, in what ways, and with what indices of success...or of concern.

But to forestall an immediate and appropriate reservation: I don’t intend to be homo sapiens centric. Rather, I want us to focus on our species as part of the wider world, indeed the wider universe. That universe includes the biological and geological worlds that are known to us.

Psychologist-turned-educator (and my teacher) Jerome Bruner inspired me. His curriculum for middle school children, developed nearly sixty years ago, centered on three questions:

Bruner in the Chanticleer 1936, Duke University (Source: Wikipedia)

• What makes human beings human?

• How did they get to be that way?

• How can they be made more so?

To approach these framing topics intelligently, we need disciplinary knowledge, rigor, and tools. We may not need to completely scuttle earlier curricular frameworks (e.g., those posed in the United States in the 1890s by the “Committee of Ten” or the more recent “Common Core”); but we need to rethink how they can be taught, modelled, and activated to address such over-arching questions.

We need to understand our human nature—biologically, psychologically, culturally, historically, and pre-historically. That’s the way to preserve the planet, all of us on it. It’s also the optimal way to launch joint human-computational ventures—ranging from robots that construct or re-construct environments to programs dedicated (as examples) to economic planning, political positioning, military strategies and decisions.

To emphasize: this approach is not intended to glorify; homo sapiens has done much that is regrettable, and lamentable. Rather, it is to explain and to understand —so that, as a species, we can do better as we move forward in a human-computer era.

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Against this background, how have I re-considered or re-conceptualized the three issues that, as a scholar, I’ve long pondered?

1. Synthesizing is the most straightforward. Anything that can be laid out and formulated—by humans or machines—will be synthesized well by ChatGPT and its ilk. It’s hard to imagine that a human being—or even a large team of well-educated human beings—will do better synthesis than ChatGPT4, 5, or n.

   We could imagine a “Howard Gardner ChatGPT”—one that synthesizes the way that I do, only better—it would be like an ever-improving chess program in that way. Whether ChatGPT-HG is a dream or a nightmare I leave to your (human) judgment.

2. Good work and good citizenship pose different challenges. Our aspirational conceptions of work and of membership in a community have emerged in the course of human history over the last several thousand years—within and across hundreds of cultures. Looking ahead, these aspirations indicate what we are likely to have to do if we want to survive as a planet and as a species.

   All cultures have views, conceptions, of these “goods,” but of course—and understandably, these views are not the same. What is good—and what is bad, or evil, or neutral—in 2023 is not the same as in 1723. What is valued today in China is not necessarily what is admired in Scandinavia or Brazil. And there are different versions of “the good” in the US—just think of the deep south compared to the East and West coasts.

   ChatGPT could synthesize different senses of “good,” in the realms of both “work” and “citizenship.” But there’s little reason to think that human beings will necessarily abide by such syntheses—the League of Nations, the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva convention were certainly created with good will by human beings—but they have been honored as much in the breach as in the observance.

A Personal Perspective

We won’t survive as a planet unless we institute and subscribe to some kind of world belief system. It needs the prevalence of Christianity in the Occident a millennium ago, or of Confucianism or Buddhism over the centuries in Asia, and it should incorporate tactics like “peaceful disobedience” in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, or Nelson Mandela. This form of faith needs to be constructed so as to enable the survival and thriving of the planet, and the entities on it, including plants, non-human animals, and the range of chemical elements and compounds.

Personally, I do not have reservations about terming this a “world religion”—so long as it does not posit a specific view of an Almighty Figure—and require allegiance to that entity. But a better analogy might be a “world language”—one that could be like Esperanto or a string of bits 00010101111….

And if such a school of thought is akin to a religion, it can’t be one that favors one culture over others—it needs to be catholic, rather than Catholic, judicious rather than Jewish. Such a belief-and-action system needs to center on the recognition and the resolution of challenges—in the spirit of controlling climate change, or conquering illness, or combatting a comet directed at earth from outer space, or a variety of ChatGPT that threatens to “do us in” from within….Of the philosophical or epistemological choices known to me, I resonate most to humanism—as described well by Sarah Bakewell in her recent book Humanly Possible.

Multiple Intelligences (MI)

And, finally, I turn to MI. Without question, any work by any intelligence, or combination of intelligences, that can be specified with clarity will soon be mastered by Large Language Instruments—indeed, such performances by now constitute a trivial achievement with respect to linguistic, logical, musical, spatial intelligences—at least as we know them, via their human instantiations.

How—or even whether —such computational instruments can display bodily intelligences or the personal intelligences is a different matter. The answer depends on how broad a formulation one is willing to accept.

To be specific:

Taylor Swift at 2019 American Music Awards (Source: Wikipedia)

• Does a robotic version of ChatGPT need to be able to perform ballet à la Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn? And must it also show how these performers might dance in 2023 rather than in 1963?

• Does it need to inspire people, the way Joan of Arc or Martin Luther King did?

• Should it be able to conduct successful psychotherapy in the manner of Erik Erikson or Carl Rogers ?

• Or are non-human attempts to instantiate these intelligences seen as category errors— the way that we would likely dismiss a chimpanzee that purported to create poetry on a keyboard?

The answers, in turn, are determined by what we mean by a human intelligence—is it certain behavioral outputs alone (the proverbial monkey that types out Shakespeare, or the songbird that can emulate Maria Callas or Luciano Pavarotti, Mick Jagger or Taylor Swift)? Or is it what a human or group of humans can express through that intelligence to other human beings—the meanings that can be created. conveyed, comprehended among members of the species.

I’m reminded of Thomas Nagel’s question: “What is it like to be a bat?” ChatGPT can certainly simulate human beings. But perhaps only human beings can realize—feel, experience, dream—what it’s like to be a human being. And perhaps only human beings can and will care—existentially—about that question. And this is what I believe education in our post-ChatGPT world should focus on.

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For comments on earlier versions of this far-ranging blog, I am grateful to Shinri Furuzawa, Jay Gardner, Annie Stachura, and Ellen Winner.

REFERENCES:

Bakewell, S. (2024). Humanly possible: Seven hundred years of humanist freethinking, inquiry, and hope. Vintage Canada.

Nagel, T. (1974). what is it like to be a bat? The Philosophical Review. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674594623.c15

Wikimedia Foundation. (2023, August 21). Man: A course of study. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man:_A_Course_of_Study

Top 5 Articles: Back to School Season

by The Good Project Team

It’s that time of year again when many students on Northern Hemisphere schedules are going back to school after a summer break. The start of the academic year brings with it new routines, opportunities, and pressures for teachers, young people, and families. Whether you’re working behind the scenes to prepare your classroom, wondering about how best to support your child through the transition, or moving on to new education adventures yourself, we wish you the best of luck with the start of the new academic year. 

Here are five articles that have recently come across our desks that might be of interest, especially in this time of transition.

1. 4 Ways to Start Connecting With Students in the First Week Back

   This research-based video from Edutopia focuses on the importance of building strong relationships and asking students to be metacognitive about their worries and needs at the beginning of the school year. A classroom that is welcoming and reflective of students’ own experiences and backgrounds, as well as shared classroom responsibilities, can enable young people to feel connected and seen.

2. How to invite introverted students to share their thinking in class

   While extroverts may thrive by getting energy from traditional forms of participation in a classroom, like talking in front of groups, introverts may feel drained or want to avoid raising their hands. This quick NPR broadcast spotlights one teacher who has tried to implement more introvert-friendly modes of participation in his ninth-grade classroom, such as prioritizing partner/small group sharing.

3. University Departures Put Student Journalists in Spotlight

   Young journalists have been in the spotlight recently as college newspapers have brought down prominent figures. As described by The New York Times, Theo Baker, a Stanford student reporter, amplified claims that Stanford’s president had forged research data. Baker’s actions exemplify “good work” in action by standing up for what is ethical, even when it might be hard (Baker was reportedly threatened with legal action).

4. AI Can Make Education More Personal (Yes, Really)

   Much of the coverage of AI tools like ChatGPT has focused on their disruptive capabilities that threaten to make traditional educational tasks like writing essays or work tasks like writing code obsolete. However, an EducationWeek op-ed argues that AI technology can free up time for teachers to build more meaningful student relationships and also provide real-time, personalized feedback that will prepare teachers for success.

5. How to Help Kids Become Skilled Citizens

   The Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Usable Knowledge published the results of research into the capacities needed for good citizens, finding that experts and non-experts discussed the most critical aspects of citizenship as “political engagement, interpersonal tasks, building an informed community, and volunteering.” For educators, there are big and small ways to embed experiences into schools to encourage students to be engaged citizens in their communities.