Time Well Spent with Jacques d’Amboise

by Margot Locker

“I don’t like the word education, it implies an end. I like ‘learning,’ as it is ongoing.” These words spoken by Jacques d’Amboise at the Harvard Graduate School of Education began a passionate hour and a half long talk by the long-time New York City Ballet principal and National Dance Institute founder. D’Amboise was visiting to discuss his ideas on arts and education in between stops on his book tour, celebrating the release of his autobiography, I am a Dancer.

D’Amboise’s talk left me feeling inspired by his passion and his connections to GoodWork. He touched on the link between engagement and excellence in work and the responsibility all individuals should feel to give back. His impressive career provides many examples of GoodWork in action.

D’Amboise confirmed the importance of engagement in all areas of life, as his success in ballet and teaching art is a testament to the significance of loving what you do. D’Amboise’s love for dancing came through clearly during his talk, and he made it explicit that if you do not love what you are doing, there is no point in doing it. Time well spent in his mind, is time working to achieve your dreams. Engagement is a key ingredient to success and happiness (as seen in d’Amboise’s case) as without it, you will struggle to find excellence or meaning in what you do. He spoke with enthusiasm and reverence for the art form, and more broadly, described how important it is to have excitement for and commitment to your life and work.   He entertained the audience with a tale of the birth of wonder, and how it continues to play a part in his learning and his hopes for learners – both young and old – to continue to wonder, create, and pursue their dreams.

From this deep engagement with his craft, d’Amboise showed how excellence is sought after and attained. His love for dance inspired a hard work ethic, a commitment to mastering the technical and emotional skills required in ballet, and most importantly, allowed him to continue to enjoy and excel at his work for decades.  D’Amboise’s creation of the National Dance Institute is a mark of his continued efforts to bring art to students around the world. His innate sense of responsibility to the greater good (ethics) was present inhis stories of supporting his female dance partners in their careers and, more overtly, in his creation of the National Dance Institute. The NDI was founded out of d’Amboise’s feeling that if youth from all walks of life have access to discover the arts through dance, they will be able to develop excellence, self-confidence, and a feeling of achievement that will lead them to future successes in all endeavors.  D’Amboise is now helping to foster passion and wonder in a new generation of dancers, students, and learners worldwide.

The hour and a half spent listening to Jacques d’Amboise was a unique experience. It seems for d’Amboise, dance is time well spent as it draws on excellence, engagement, and ethics, thus making it meaningful work for him. His energy and love for his craft was contagious. His commitment to helping children achieve excellence was inspiring.

Information on the National Dance Institute.

Opening of the GoodWork Hub, Netherlands

by Alexandrien Van Der Burgt-Franken

On January 26, 2011 the Good Work Hub started its program in The Hague, Netherlands, a spot for people “who want to turn their profession into work, realizing that as such it has meaning. Whether you are a teacher, policeman, nurse, doctor or social worker, you contribute a building block to our society, development and civilization.”

These opening words were spoken by Alexandrien van der Burgt, founder and president of the Stichting Beroepseer (Professional Honor Foundation) and starter of the Good Work Hub. She explained how she got this idea in the summer of 2010, after attending a meeting with public servants of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports and another with “shop-floor workers”. The public servants said that they could not agree on financial legislations and incident politics. At the second meeting members of parliament were so caught up in their political programs that they were incapable of listening to the people who do the actual work. After these meetings, Alexandrien van der Burgt resolved, “We must bring these different worlds together. People must meet again and start changes.”

The next speaker was Jacqueline Rutjens, who works in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations. Ending her speech with an invitation, she said: “The Good Work Hub is there for professionals with drive, managers and policy makers, scientists and others who are interested in good workmanship, good regulations, stimulating leadership and effective definitions of rules and laws. You are here to improve professional quality but also because you believe in the chances for new social networks. You are searching for contacts you might not make otherwise. We have high expectations of you.”

Jacqueline Rutjes also said in her speech that Thijs Jansen will make a start finding out what good work in the public sector means. Giving a scientific definition of the exact content of good work will be part of  his program.

Thijs Jansen is founder and member of the board of the Stichting Beroepseer and research/professor at the Tilburg School of Politics and Public Administration Management.

The name Good Work Hub is based on the Good Work Project, started in 1995 by the American psychologists Howard Gardner, Mihaly Csikszentmihaly and William Damon with research in the field of leadership, creativity and morality. The project was created to address their concern for the possible results of professionals coming under enormous pressure from growing social attention for incidents, individualization and increasing market forces.

The book “Beroepstrots – een ongekende kracht”, edited by Thijs Jansen, Gabriel van den Brink and Jos Kole and published in 2009, was translated in 2010 as “Professional Pride – a Powerful Force”.  It contains a chapter dedicated to the Good Work Project. The core of good work is professionalism, ethical responsibility and personal engagement. This project forms the basis for the Good Work Toolkit, by Lynn Barendsen and Wendy Fischman. They developed a toolkit showing the way for professionals to discuss all kinds of dilemmas they might encounter in their work. The book “Good Work Toolkit” has been translated into Dutch under the title of  “Goedwerk Gereedschapskist”. The Good Work Hub plans to make use of the gereedschapskist.

During the opening of the Good Work Hub Thijs Jansen connected via Skype with Lynn Barendsen in her place of work at Harvard University in the U.S.A. She talked about her research of, and interviews with some 1200 people in different professions, from very young devoted students and young professionals to people in their sixties. One of the insights she gained during her research was the realization that just thinking about ones profession may lead to many advantages.

Finally Alexandrien van der Burgt mentioned that the Good Work Hub now has a number of allies where the message of GoodWork will continue to be spread. Amongst them organisations in the field of education, public service, the police, home care, social work and a college of hotel, tourism and management. The ideas of ethics, engagement, and excellence in work are global characteristics, and apply to individuals in all sectors of work.

“Think-load” versus Workload

by Peter Gow

Between Tiger Moms and racing to nowhere, we’re a nation obsessed with stress. Do our students experience too much of it, or too little? Does an endless cycle of high-stakes standardized testing turn kids into jibbering shells of their authentic selves, or do parents and schools need to push students even harder to extract from them the most perfect essence (and the last drop) of their true potential?

The answer lies elsewhere, I think, and schools can play a role in keeping the conversation on this topic both real and helpful.

A few weeks back my school was featured on an NPR piece ostensibly about stress among seniors. Predictably in what was overall a very good piece, the reporter became fixated on a decision that we had made some years back to replace our few courses with “Advanced Placement” designation with several new, teacher-created Honors Advanced electives. To the reporter, and to many of those who read the article, this move seemed to have something to do with stress reduction.

In fact, we created our Honors Advanced courses to push our students even harder in the direction of in-depth, analytical thinking in the sciences and mathematics. Rather than being somehow less stressful or less work, these courses are designed to have students thinking like biologists, chemists, physicists, and mathematicians rather than amassing knowledge for one three-hour information dump on a May examination. If our Honors Advanced courses have had anything to do with stress, it is to spread a heavy think-load (as opposed to a workload) over months; hardly a let-up.

It’s no secret to most of us in the profession that analytical and critical thinking skills are what we most need and want our students to have. We can teach these in a whole slew of ways, but along the way we need to create the conditions in our school that truly foster their development—to build a culture of think-load, not just workload.

What do I mean by think-load? I mean work whose central element is the application of critical and analytical thinking skills, with a hefty dose of logic. In a thousand books, articles, and blogs we can find educators and education writers extolling the virtues of mathematics problems that require the use of multiple skills and multiple kinds of reasoning; of open-ended problems with real-world applications in all disciplines; of a design-thinking approach to problem-solving; of intentional, smart problem- and project-based learning exercises; of creating exhibition-style work for authentic audiences. Think-load is the sum of the learning experiences, and learning exercises, that focus on this kind of work.

High think-load education does not preclude the need to master basic content and skills, despite the attempts of many educational polemicists to portray this is an either/or (and right/wrong) situation. As one of our students said in commenting on work he was doing at the new NuVu Studio program, which is built around the design-studio model, “You need to learn the facts and skills in order to solve the problem, but you need to understand the problem in order to know which facts and skills you need.” “Facts and skills,” to use his language, become authentic and valued tools for doing real work rather than simply fodder for endless problem sets, worksheets, and tests.

It is not easy for schools to swim upstream, especially when funding and teachers’ careers depend on standardized test scores. I am fortunate to work in an independent school, but even we are not exempt from the pressure to ramp up workload. But I think schools can begin to shift toward think-load by making a few changes of mindset, by focusing on what students today need to know how to do and by making sure that students, and the student experience of school, are seen as in the light of their particular talents and interests.

The greatest danger in our love affair with workload and with standardized testing is that it tends to reduce students to aggregates—to score numbers, to percentile bands, to elements of n: “How did they do?” rather than “What can s/he do?” A whole lot of schools claim to be student-centered, and the best way to express this value in our time is to keep each student and the work they are doing in view, despite all the challenges associated with overcrowded classrooms and schools.

If we focus on each student’s think-load, the kinds of analytical and critical work we are asking them to do and the level of real thinking that goes into this work—this Good Work—we can begin to wriggle out from under the press of numbers and the tyranny of an educational culture obsessed, one way or another, with stress.

How Can Educators Help Reduce Student Stress?

by Kathleen Kury Farrell

The Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA recently released findings from its annual survey of more than 200,000 college freshmen.  This year’s headline-grabber is the negative trend in students’ self-reported mental health (see this NY Times article, for example). The entering class of 2010 gives their own mental health the lowest assessment of any cohort in the survey’s 25 year history. They say they are frequently overwhelmed by all they have do – a feeling that seems to carry over from the stress they experienced in high school.  Interestingly, more women report being overwhelmed than men, and women’s perceived stress levels are actually greater as well.

My own work in higher education has been motivated by a concern for students’ holistic success.  Although I’ve enjoyed many roles inside the classroom, my professional responsibilities and research interests have revolved around the time students spend in residence halls, campus governance, clubs and organizations, student employment, and much more. In each of these roles I witnessed the highs and lows that students experience as they encounter what one wise colleague termed “the tyranny of opportunities” that can exist in a collegiate environment.

Although I did not find the UCLS report surprising, it is nevertheless sobering to be reminded of how challenging our students’ lives can be.  The findings hit home, in part, because many educators occasionally experience the same feeling of frenzy that our students convey.  And, for some, stress is a similarly unhealthy way of life.

In the wake of this press I’ve found myself wondering whether even lives that are “purpose-full” and relatively low-stress can unwittingly reinforce the notion that busy-ness is necessary, or that overflowing days convey achievement and worth. It is probably fair to say that the adults who are most personally involved in young adults’ lives balance many roles while putting in long hours at work and serving in their communities. Young people often see us on the move and hear us talking (and sometimes complaining) about our fine-tuned schedules. What they typically don’t see are the difficult, ongoing – and typically private – deliberations in which adults weigh priorities and decide to say “no.”

It goes without saying that many students need and benefit from the expertise and guidance found in their school counseling centers.  However, I don’t think we should overlook the power that stories and experience have to support students in their struggles.  I’ve been involved in assessing two programs that are designed as proverbial ports in the storm. Consisting of panels and/or discussion groups, these initiatives invite students to slow down, take stock, and consider what they are doing with their lives and why. These sessions often include recent alumni, faculty, staff, and “older-wiser” peers who tell their stories so younger students can learn from their difficult decisions and, occasionally, their failures.

Such exchanges go beyond time management to the more challenging and meaningful task of how to manage one’s self.  Participants’ feedback underscores how valuable it is to know others also find their must-dos and want-to-dos isolating and oppressive.  More important, they hear in these stories a message that it is normal and necessary to be proactive in charting one’s course and revising it constantly.  Learning to prioritize, commit to, and let go of opportunities and commitments are difficult lessons but ones that every person confronts – often many times over!  Unless educators make the lessons of doing so explicit we run the risk that young people will take implicit cues from busy environments and continue feeling overwhelmed.

The Value of Play

by Margot Locker

The importance of play in a child’s life has been debated from every angle in recent weeks.  Articles have discussed the value of recess, the significance of structured play during the school day, the need for creativity, and most recently, from the perspective of the “Tiger Mother,” the benefits of extreme structure and no play. Groups, such as Alliance for Childhood,  have formed that are dedicated to increasing the culture of play in children’s lives, while at the same time, schools are devaluing the importance of recess, art, and physical education as a result of NCLB and the focus on standardized testing that has swept the nation.  Parents, educators, and researchers all have varying, often conflicting views on what is appropriate for children in their “free” time.

During my two years teaching 3rd grade in West Philadelphia, I viewed the 30 daily minutes of recess time as almost equally important to time devoted to math and reading.  8 year-olds have a remarkable amount of energy and, without a space to release it, behavior, anger, and attention issues are sure to follow.  On days without recess, my students’ behavior and attention levels were noticeably decreased. Their engagement in lessons was not there, and thus, their ability to internalize the material declined. Learning was far more challenging for my students without the 30 minutes they usually had to run around, socialize, and have the freedom for creative play.  Further, for many of my students, this was the only time they had to run around outside, as many lived in urban areas where outdoor safety and supervision were unavailable for them if they desired to play outside. Recess was a special time for my students, and a time where they could explore, create, and be kids.

Recess took place on a large blacktop. There was no playground equipment, and the toys and sports gear were long lost or broken. Despite the lack of resources, I was always amazed to watch what my students did during their free time. They created games, made up dances, and devised elaborate games of tag. Their ingenuity and resourcefulness impressed me, and I viewed this time as its own form of learning. Due to space and financial constraints, gym classes had been cut to once a week, so recess truly was a unique time of day.

I find it hard to consider the issue of play without thinking about GoodWork. Teaching a lesson where students stayed in their seats and were talked “at” often resulted in sleepy eyes, heads on desk, and an obvious lack of engagement.  However, when I attempted to incorporate some aspect of play in a lesson-a skit about verbs, a race outside to learn decimal points, a hands-on science experiment-the engagement level skyrocketed. Further, the understanding of the material, and the excellence at which the students retained and processed the lesson was always far higher following creative lessons. No child can be expected to sit still in a classroom for 8 hours a day and remain focused.  Countless studies reveal that physical activity aids in learning and triggers brain activity. Beyond the academic benefits  of play and movement, the childhood obesity epidemic in our country, coupled with the fact that children spend  7 hours 38 minutes a day on average in front of a television or computer (according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation last year)  should motivate teachers and parents alike to encourage activity, structured or not.  Taking away the chance to play from a child is taking away an essential part of growing up.