Sifting Through Your Values

by Amma Marfo

This post, originally published in the blog, “The Dedicated Amateur”, is being reprinted here with permission from the author.

“I don’t just care about making you all good at your jobs, though that is really important. I also want you to be good people. That sounds really cheesy, I’m sure, but it’s important and it’s something I want to help with.”

The statement above is a rough excerpt from my speech at our student organization Fall Planning Day, one of our biggest training opportunities for student organization leaders on campus and a significant platform to get relevant information across to this segment of our student leader population. While we had sessions on procedural items such as reserving space, using our campus events calendar, and financial paperwork, I believe that values education and clarification deserves a place on that stage as well, so I incorporated a values exercise into my section of the day.

The link for the activity and accompanying resources will follow this post, but I do want to explain how we went about this process.

Students were given a packet of slips, thirty slips in all, and told to read through them all and spread them out on their table so all could be seen. Bit by bit, they were told to eliminate some of the values present by flipping them face-down, until five remained. Those five were the most important values to them. This exercise was completed in four rounds: identifying personal values, values as an organization member, values of the organization, and what values they want from OSAMP staff, SGA, and those who work with them.

It was this last part that I want to share here in this blog. We all have values that guide us as professionals, and we like to think those are the ones that students appreciate most. To get an idea of what guides the work of my fellow professionals, I took to Twitter and asked.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

 Amma Marfo @ammamarfo

If you had to distill the values with which you do your work down to three words, which three would you pick? #sachat #sagrad

7:23 AM – 10 Sep 2013

I was really excited to see the responses that I got from everyone, and put them into this Wordle for a more graphical representation of the words selected. Even without a common bank of values to choose from, the larger words will indicate which values rose to the top. Take a look to see which words recurred: “empathy”, “integrity”, “caring”, “service”, and “justice”.

 Now, take note of those words, in comparison to the ones that students deemed essential to good working relationships with student activities staff, organization advisors, and their SGA members who oversee many student organization processes:

Of particular note to me was the recurrence of the values “openness” and “honesty”. While students understand (at least in an academic sense) that we can’t always share all the information we have with them, they are also very aware when they’re being given the run-around, or even flat-out lied out. The degree to which this term came up helped me to remember to continue being straightforward with students- including saying “I don’t know” if I truly don’t know an answer.
Another important observation for me was the number of times that professional conduct and professional demeanor surfaced as a desirable value. We all want to have friendly relationships with students, and the degree to which we successfully create these friendly dynamics varies. But when it came down to it, and we asked close to 200 student leaders what they want from those who they work with, they asked for professionalism. Be it by asking for teaching or mentoring relationships, requesting quality work from us, or stressing their desire for hard work and commitment, they want us to be professional.

To be frank, when I look over this cloud again, I find that the values they appreciate, are ones I would like to see in them. We want our student leaders to approach their work professionally, and with the understanding that some initiatives and projects will take work. We want to learn from them, just as they want to learn from us. We would like them to be respectful. And, most common- we want them to be honest.

Do you see intersections between the two clouds? In my estimation, professionals and students alike value having good working relationships, understanding the feelings and thoughts of the parties involved, and being considerate of the opinions and developmental processes each side is experiencing. In the best case, we are all learning each day, whether we’re professionals or students. Being considerate of those learning moments could be essential to better understanding one another, and being able to work together better as offices, student organizations, agencies, and individuals. As I move forward in the year, I look forward to sharing these results with them, and framing the work we each do through the lens of the values they would like to see in us.

Do you incorporate values education into the work you do with your student leaders? What values do they find important? What values do you want to see in your own student leaders?

For more information on the Value Sort activity, a part of the GoodWork toolkit, click the button below:

Cracking the code: How the youngest generation is “Standing Up”

by Emily Weinstein and Paromita De

A pervasive narrative portrays contemporary youth as more plugged-in to their social networks than into social issues. Stand Up!: 75 Young Activists Who Rock the World And How You Can, Too! makes a case for the converse through its collection of stories about young people dedicated to making a difference. The new volume, edited by John Schlimm, shines a light on the dedication and determination of these youth and endeavors to motivate other young people to pursue activism. The book’s message – that “you can [do it], too” – is a sentiment we subscribe to as researchers who care deeply about youth engagement. Yet, in the process of highlighting inspiring stories of young activists, the book also raises important questions about who is civically engaged, and how they are getting involved. These questions, and lessons drawn from the volume, are crucial if we intend to widen the breadth of young people who are engaged.

The book’s vignettes portray activists who range in both age and interests. Featured youth include a brother and sister who started working to protect endangered species at ages 3 and 5, a 9 year-old who collects donated toys to be given to children who have lost their belongings in fires, a 14 year-old who raises awareness on water issues, and a college graduate who advocates nutritious eating habits for elementary school students by cultivating a student-tended garden. What unites these students is their passion – for each, an idea or issue is so captivating that it moves them to action. Similar to trends mentioned in Barendsen’s paper on Social Entrepreneurs, many of the young activists trace their passion to life-changing experiences, such as suffering from an illness or being exposed to other’s hardships.

Another common thread across many of the featured stories was the importance of “supporters” – often parents or other adults around them who could not only encourage their passion, but also serve as resources to these young activists. These adults played instrumental roles in helping youth actualize their civic goals: a mother who made an important connection with a non-profit group to incorporate her teenage son’s initiative to provide donations to veterans; a father who contacted a local news station to publicize his blind, 7-year-old son’s mission to bring Braille labels to grocery stores; another father who organized a group of climbers to accompany his 8 year-old young son and he for their climb up Mount Kilimanjaro to fundraise for a cure for Duchenne; parents who helped their 6 year-old son found an organization that works to make hospital experiences better for sick children by arranging visits from National Hockey League players and providing toys and games.

It appears that this combination of passion and support is a profound recipe for engagement and “civic success.”  But given this apparent nexus, we wonder how we can support youth who may be concerned about an issue but do not have similar resources? It is certainly admirable of parents to encourage social consciousness and participatory citizenship among their children, but not all youth are situated in families or communities where adults have the time and resources to help young people turn their civic tendencies into established projects. Is having supporting adults around youth to inspire them to think about causes a necessary condition for these youth to be civically engaged? If so, how can we extend key supports to help all youth to engage in and create solutions for society?  Further, many of the young activists discuss the influence of supporting adults on their interest in civic engagement in the first place. They note how a parent or another adult first discussed an issue with them, which in turn evoked a sense of compassion and a related interest in activism. As for youth whose parents may not be civically engaged themselves, how can we provide them with requisite awareness and resources to see themselves as change agents?

The vignettes reiterate the importance of ensuring that young people’s emerging passions are met with critical supports to help them translate ideas into activism. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we’re left with the conclusion that caring adults who serve as role models and mentors have a uniquely positive influence on youth’s goals and their paths to reach them. Linking more youth with caring, engaged adults or with instrumental supports to help them turn their interests into action is a worthwhile endeavor for civic engagement initiatives. Programs like Mikva Challenge are already supporting youth in these ways, and organizations like DoSomething.org are exploring the possibility of delivering supports for youth engagement through digital technologies.

In a different vein, the vignettes also raise a question for us about narratives of “civic success,” particularly related to one element that is the cornerstone to success stories in any domain: failure. Although several stories mention moments or instances that cause students to backtrack their efforts or feel temporarily discouraged (such as a middle school student, who grew up to be a special education teacher, being teased by his classmates for being labeled as ‘emotionally disturbed’), the vast majority of stories tend to focus more prominently on the interest, achievements and outcomes related to these young people’s initiatives. On one hand, the focus on positive elements of each story contributes to the message that activism is accessible to all (it’s hard to imagine feeling like ‘you can do it too’ after reading a collection of stories about people who couldn’t). But, if we “sugarcoat” stories about failure or create an impression that success, achievement and recognition are hallmarks of civic engagement, we risk providing an incomplete picture of what civic engagement entails.  Even if youth are motivated to become engaged, they may not persevere when they begin encountering challenges—and they almost certainly will, since social issues tend to exist in the first place because they are difficult to solve. If we want to prepare young people for sustained civic engagement, we need to be upfront about the rewards and the challenges they may encounter, in order to set the critical groundwork for both an orientation toward achieving “civic success” and a “civic resilience” that allows activists to see initiatives through in spite of obstacles.

Stand Up! provides an impressive array of stories that can open young people’s minds to the possibility of activism. The vignettes reinforce the message that youth can take issues that matter to them and become leaders in creating change. At the same time, the collection surfaces questions about the factors that facilitate youth “rock[ing] the world.” Schlimm is unquestionably successful in crafting a different narrative about 21st century youth than often pervades the popular press – and we’re thrilled to see stories that shift the focus from the art of the selfie to the power of selfless activism.

Some Thoughts about Good Collaboration

by Lynn Barendsen

I have recently returned from a thought-provoking meeting, and write here to share some reflections.  For almost two decades, our Good Project team has been investigating Good Work, and more recently we have expanded our research to include investigations into Good Play, Good Citizenship, and Good Life.  In particular, I have been tasked with considering the legacy of the Good Project:  our impact in and beyond the classroom and our influence within the broader conversation among educational organizations, social movements, and changemakers.

In San Francisco, I attended the quarterly meeting of Eric Liu’s Civic Collaboratory.  Our thanks to Eric Liu for inviting us to attend the Collaboratory (Howard Gardner and I have both attended, on separate occasions) – the opportunity to participate gives us the opportunity to connect (and potentially work) with many who share our interests.  Similarly we hope to contribute substantively to the work and ideas put forward by the Collaboratory group. Our involvement with this network has given me new insight into what it takes to collaborate well.

First, a bit about the Collaboratory.  Part of Citizen University (formerly known as the Guiding Lights Network), the Civic Collaboratory is the brainchild of Eric Liu, writer, “civic entrepreneur” and former speechwriter for the Clinton White House.  The collaboratories are invitation-only working meetings, gathering leaders of civic and democratic organizations, activists, writers and researchers from the worlds of education, business, law, science, art, politics and technology.  The shared goal of this non-partisan group is to invigorate citizenship and democracy in the US.

Clearly this is a “can do” group. During each meeting, a few members of the Collaboratory present a major initiative or question to the entire group.  The rest of the members are expected to provide not only feedback but also genuine, real commitments of time, energy and resources.  This format, dubbed the “Rotating Credit Club,” is taken seriously:  in addition to commitments made during the session, members of the Collaboratory are also encouraged to work together in between sessions.

An example: Jacqueline Smith, Advisor to the President for Social Embeddedness at Arizona State University, is tasked with helping to design ASU’s Public Service Academy. Jacqueline and colleagues are thinking about the kinds of leaders we might need in the future, hope to graduate “collaborative leaders of character,” and “redefine what public service is in our country.”  To accomplish these goals, the Public Service Academy is creating a Social Impact Training Corps (SITC), a civilian version of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). ASU, the largest public university in the country, has 73,000 students across four campuses in the Phoenix metropolitan area; this is a project with big potential impact.  Jacqueline asked the Collaboratory for immediate feedback (e.g. would you hire a SITC graduate) and for longer-term help (how can we spread this idea).   One participant from Change.org said he’d happily hire a graduate because they had already been vetted.  A fellow from a major foundation suggested Jacqueline consider how to pull returning veterans into the model and contact the Tillman Foundation.

I am still learning the ins and outs of this network, but there are a few critical elements that make me optimistic that the Collaboratory will be an example of “good” collaboration.  Each of these elements, present here in practice, have been identified as crucial in our research on Good Collaboration:

-The delineation of responsibilities is clear.  Interestingly, it is up to the individual who is doing the asking to follow up with all connections made.

-The collaborative process is clearly laid out and consistent from one meeting to the next.

-Goals are articulated at the outset, revisited at the end of each meeting, and explained in between quarterly gatherings.

-Attendees, or collaborators, are all present because they want to be.  Participation has not been imposed upon anyone.

Attention to these nuts-and-bolts make me hopeful that actual change may be achieved by this group, for example, opportunities for local impact (community gardens, senior centers) are increased by broadening the reach of new organizations like Citizenvestor, new technologies like google plus “hangouts” can be utilized to improve the civic and cultural dialogues that are going on around us constantly.  I have personally connected with three participants since the meeting, in each case discerning potential projects that could encourage good collaborative work in new venues.

Over the years, my colleagues and I have written quite a bit about what it takes to do Good Work, acknowledging that carrying out high quality, ethically responsible work is anything but easy.  We began to study collaboration because we were curious to determine why it is that some collaborations go well while so many fail. We believe that collaborative skills are increasingly important in an age when interconnectedness is the norm.  At the same time, one needs to be very wary of pseudo connectedness and pseudo collaboration – like, for example, the teenager with 1000 “friends” who has no one to turn to when in need.

The connection between Good Work and collaboration is more direct than I previously realized.  In Gardens of Democracy, Liu and co-author Nick Hanauer rework several common beliefs about that basic democratic notion, “self-interest.”   For example, “It’s survival of the fittest – only the strong survive” becomes “It’s survival of the smartest – only the cooperative survive” and “rugged individualism wins” becomes “teamwork wins”.  We exist in a world that is constantly connected, where workers across sectors are always “on” and are regularly asked to communicate between multiple cultural understandings.  Perhaps, Good Work in the 21st century faces too many challenges to be achieved in isolation; perhaps, Good Work in the 21st century is necessarily collaborative.

Caution – Construction Site: Using the GoodWork Toolkit in the Classroom

by Shernaz Minwalla

As the Academic Research Program Director at University Liggett School in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, I use the GoodWork Toolkit while teaching students about the research process to have them understand the importance of reflecting on their values and to see how these values impact different aspects of their research. These aspects include but are not limited to their choice of topics, the way they conduct research, the way they cite sources, and the way they interact with their peers and mentors. Good Work was first introduced to me by Wendy Fischman, a researcher for Project Zero, when ULS was first designing the Academic Research Program, specifically to create lesson plans that would involve the students in an exploration of their values and the challenges to doing excellent, engaging, and ethical work. Wendy and fellow researcher, Lynn Barendsen, were able to visit with research class members and note the breadth and depth of the projects chosen. Projects  entailed topics such as the effects of music on OCD symptoms, futurism, the Detroit Public School System, and ecologically-friendly paint for artists. Wendy and Lynn shared their knowledge of Good Work with Liggett’s pre-k through twelve faculty, which led to other uses of the Good Work Toolkit, such as with the Fine and Performing Arts Players Board, advisory, and even faculty meetings. At the GoodWork Conference in March 2013, Phil Moss, Chairperson for the Arts Department, and I engaged participants in activities we use in our courses. More importantly, we met with many wonderful people embracing the need to incorporate the Good Work philosophy in our practices. When asked to teach a mini-course on Good Work at the Project Zero Summer Institute, I just assumed that everyone attending the conference was familiar with the Good Project ideas.  Because this was not the case, it gave Wendy and I an opportunity to explain the philosophy and history for the design of Good Work and its uses.

Although their toolkits didn’t contain hammers and screwdrivers, teachers at the Project Zero Summer Institute 2013 used markers, poster paper, sticky notes and materials from the GoodWork Toolkit to construct an environment conducive to learning about Good Work. To establish their preliminary thoughts about excellent work, participants wrote three words, two questions, and one metaphor or simile that came to mind, applying the 3-2-1 routine from Making Thinking Visible. Because teachers are active people, they stretched their legs and minds to engage in activities and discussions to answer the question,” what is excellent work?” Posters with characteristics of good journalists, artists, business people, educators, and students hung on the wall. Partners explained why various objects around the room were good examples of excellent work,  ranging from a coffee mug to intricately designed scarves.

After a flurry of activity, participants slowed the learning down and took some time to reflect on their own work goals and their definition of success. Sharing initiatives and challenges with a new friend or two provided an opportunity to note similarities and possibly come up with new ideas. Participants were then given some quiet time to read one of many vignettes from the toolkit,” Silence isn’t always golden.” Follow-up group discussions were rich with examples of how the story relates to the many roadblocks our students face today to doing good work. Teachers also noted that, “it’s easier for students to talk about somebody else’s situation rather than their own, so the vignettes are great because they are interviews of real people dealing with real dilemmas.”

Spread out over the floor or on a window sill, participants used the Value Sort to rank their values, an activity that many claim “hurts their brain.” The activity allows students to see what values drive their work at home, at school, on the athletic fields, or on stage. Participants in the session were able to review the session through the Compass Points routine from Making Thinking Visible. We shared our excitements, questions, and suggestions for implementing Good Work in the classroom. Some stated that they will conduct GoodWork Toolkit activities during advisory time, while others suggested faculty meetings and theater groups. At the end of the session, teachers left with an intangible toolkit of their own – activities, routines, and most importantly, new friends.

How Moments of Good Transformed My High School

by Molly Freed

It was a rare sunny day in a stretch of bleary days in Seattle, so most of the Chief Sealth International (CSI) High School students had shed their jackets and were sporting their World Water Week (WWW) festival t-shirts. In the far corner, my team of highly skilled freshmen and sophomores helped some participants don sheets to affix their five gallon water jugs to their backs. Others had already grabbed a jug and started running. I knew this would stop soon when the blisters on their hands started smarting, and the realization of what “40 pounds” really meant had hit them. Some of our Student Body officers had already begun handing out raffle tickets to those students who were taking the exercise seriously, demonstrating good work ethic, or helping others. They would run out of tickets in ten minutes. I watched some of our East African students demonstrate the way that they had carried water when they lived in Ethiopia, and how they kicked it once their arms got tired. I watched our security guard, Jimbo, make his 31st lap of the day, and Mr. Ezeonwu enjoy the points and gleeful shouts that accompanied his first lap balancing the water on his head. In that moment, I knew that I had actually succeeded in providing our community with a small and heavily diluted glimpse of what it is like for millions of children around the world who must carry water to their families every day.

Because of this moment and hundreds like it that were experienced during WWW, and despite all the stress and sweat and coffee, my team decided to put on WWW again. And again. And though I wasn’t there to facilitate after my own graduation, other students (nearly 80 of them!) stepped up to lead what is still a behavior-altering festival three years later.

Let’s be honest, doing good work is not always the number one concern of a high school student. Especially not at CSI High School in Seattle, where I was among the 75 percent that graduated in 2011. Most of us were either focused on graduating on time, juggling part time jobs, or trying to shine on our college applications. In crunch time, my friends were using library computers to finish applications, and choosing between after-school activities and babysitting their siblings. Sacrifices in excellence, engagement, or even ethics occasionally had to be made.

I was lucky. I was surrounded by a network of some of the most inspirational, hard-working, and diverse high school students in the city, and yet I had been raised with massive amounts of support and opportunity that many of my fellow students had not. This combination (thanks Mom and Dad!) granted me the unique ability to apply to the Bezos Scholars Program (BSP) in 2010, a leadership development program that fully funds the journey of 12 rising seniors and their educators from across the country to meet at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Once there, we participated in discussions around the most pressing issues of our time. We also had small group meetings with change-makers from around the world who were doing good work to address these issues.

The most essential part of the Program, however, was the leadership training that equipped me to bring the experience back to Seattle and the halls of Chief Sealth. I was tasked with creating a Local Ideas Festival (LIF) in my own community, and engaging them on an issue of my choosing. My BSP Educator Noah Zeichner and I chose to focus on water (but honestly it was kind of a non-decision, since it encompassed poverty, hunger, education and health – issues we were both passionate about).We put this passion into action by launching WWW, which we hoped would mobilize our school and community by connecting critical needs in our own backyard to water issues around the globe.

As we started planning our festival in August, we set lofty goals. Reality set in around December, when we realized that the to-do list on Mr. Zeichner’s whiteboard covered an entire wall, I was studying for finals and applying to colleges, and Mr. Zeichner was essentially working three jobs with a newborn daughter at home. We relied on the passion of our faculty, the unrelenting energy of our student team, and the faith and support provided by community stakeholders to get us through winter.

As spring and the week of our festival arrived, so too did grant money, nationally renowned speakers, and current Governor Jay Inslee. We ate homemade Mexican food provided by the moms of some of our team, and we (under)sold shirts and water bottles to attendees and students. We painted posters after school, choreographed and chickened out of doing a flash mob, and raised about $3,000 for Water 1st International.

On the final day of WWW, as students cycled through their choice of 17 different locally and globally themed water workshops, I took the time to actually absorb what was happening. I was running the Walk for Water, and I had just finished hyping up the kids and their teachers by pitting them against the other study halls and challenging them to carry more water than 7 year old girls in developing nations must carry every day. I saw variations of this scene repeated throughout the day, in every session I attended, among a demographic that’s usually painted as the most apathetic in our society.

Upon reflection, I don’t think these students participated or stepped up to lead because they were passionate about water – I don’t even think I did it because I was passionate about water. It was a huge factor, obviously, and I’m pretty confident it’s an issue I will work with for the rest of my life. Yet the components of my festival experience that I remember most vividly could have revolved around any world issue. The parts that I remember were truly moments of good work – little moments where high school students, faculty, or community members found themselves in a position to make a difference, and took it. A girl giving up her allowance to help build a well. A teacher breaking from her curriculum of 20 years to do a unit on our local watershed. A parent telling his children stories of his own experience with water scarcity.

So no, doing good work isn’t easy in high school. The structures are rigid, and the models of success are often narrow. Mr. Zeichner and I knew that operating inside of this paradigm wouldn’t impact our students. We knew that in order to inspire we had to produce examples of good that students could relate to across a huge spectrum of interests and passions. In the same way that I had been ignited by my experience at the Aspen Ideas Festival, we wanted to create a ripple effect that would radiate out from WWW.

Most high school students have way too many things to think about, especially in communities of lower socio-economic class. Surrounding them with an environment of positive examples, igniting their interests and capturing their attention made them want to do good. That’s what we did with WWW, and that’s what we think will be successful for other school-wide festivals that want to make an impact.

Molly Freed is a 2010 Bezos Scholar and rising junior at Scripps College in Claremont, CA. 

The Bezos Scholars Program @ the Aspen Institute is a year-long leadership development program for public high school juniors and educators to put their education into action. It begins with a scholarship to the Aspen Ideas Festival and continues through the following school year when Bezos Scholar teams return home to launch sustainable, Local Ideas Festivals that transform their schools and communities. Learn more: www.bezosfamilyfoundation.org/Scholars, www.facebook.com/BSPAspen, twitter.com/BezosScholars