by Margot Locker
Billy Zima is the Director of Identity Artworks in Scotland, working with challenging youth in schools countrywide. Billy began using the Value Sort with students and teachers to begin conversations on values and beliefs in classrooms, a tool many have found valuable tool for self-actualization and beginning a dialogue on GoodWork. Billy’s approach with Identity Artworks is not simply to target students but to begin the GoodWork discussion on 5 different levels within the high schools he works with:
The Headmaster (Principal)
The Depute Heads (SMT – Senior Management Team)
Specialty staff (ASN – Additional Support Needs) – who in time share the knowledge with mainstream teaching staff
High Tariff Students
Regular Students
Recently, Billy filled us in on a session he led with five Additional Support Needs teachers and two Identity Artworks facilitators. He read the group “Looking Good” from the GoodWork Toolkit, the story of Ray, a middle-aged history teacher who struggles to hold students accountable in an environment of grade inflation and pressure from the administration to make his students look successful. The teachers reflected on the narrative and the broader implications of GoodWork in their community.
Teachers commented on how this dilemma felt “familiar,” one teacher remarking “You want the best for the child…above everything…but you also want your school to look good you, want these other things.” They discussed the tension Ray faced as a teacher and what that means. Many teachers in the group described that they felt compelled to provide everything for their students; academic instruction, emotional support, and more, and they are unsure of where to draw the line.
Some felt that Ray was thinking solely as a teacher, one commenting “that’s my bottom line when things are really going badly at the end of the day. I trained to be a teacher but he’s trying to only be the teacher…I think now one more way to expect the teacher to be everything to the child. We’re expected to be the parent, the social worker, the counselor.” This took the conversation toward a reflection on the pilot program these teachers were a part of, working to help students who are behaviorally challenged to prepare to enter mainstream courses. The group spent the duration of the session thinking through their pilot couched in the context of the narrative they had read and what their roles and responsibilities are as teachers.Billy will continue to work with this school, next presenting to students, hopefully using a combination of value sort and narratives to guide discussions.
Billy also had groups of students and teachers complete the value sort as a vehicle to ignite GoodWork discussion. He recently led a two-day series of workshops and gave the value sort cards to around 120 people 3 groups of approximately 40 people. He shared some reactions individuals had to the Value Sort:
“I’ve never had to think like this before”.
“They never taught me this in school.”
“I wish I had know this about myself a long time ago.”
Stay tuned: Billy and Identity Artworks continue to spread GoodWork into schools, companies, and prisons in the future. We are excited to hear more as this work progresses!