Parents as Educators: A 'Good Work' Perspective

by Kirsten McHugh

Typically, parents and teachers have complementary roles, and can function in relative independence from one another. This has not been a typical year. In 2020, except in places where children are physically back at school full-time, parents (whether they felt they signed up for the task or not) have had a new assignment thrust upon them--that of teacher. For many, in addition to being “good parents”, and/or “good workers”, parents are now figuring out how they can also be “good teachers” to their children. There is now a lot of serious discussion among parents who are understandably overwhelmed by this proposition. 

The average parent has little to no experience being in a teaching position—save for the chaotic few months last spring when the entire educational system was abruptly thrust into remote learning. At the time, most jurisdictions were forced to use clunky but readily accessible educational platforms implemented as a stop-gap at the start of the pandemic. 

The summer break has provided school systems with a chance to integrate their curricula with more specialized online learning software. Teachers have explored new tools to assist in their technological pedagogy while simultaneously transferring in-person teaching materials into digital formats. There has been a lot of debate over whether and how schools will reopen and if so, whether or not parents will send their children in or keep them home (that is, if this is a decision they have the luxury of making). There has been far less discussion about how to support parents as they prepare for the fall: circumstances have given them a new role within the educational system, but are parents able to take it on? Should they?

We here at The Good Project are not experts in how to balance all of the competing demands on parents, but we hope that our tools and ideas can provide some ways for parents to think about how they plan to approach the situation. As an example, parents might consider approaching the situation through the lens of the 3 E’s of Good Work: excellence, ethics, and engagement. 

Engagement

Engagement might be the most challenging of the 3 E’s for parents to embody in their support of remote learning during the current crisis. This is a stressful time for each and everyone one of us. The pandemic and the upheaval of our regular lives has been jarring. This stress is a direct obstacle to engagement. 

The scenarios parents now face are wide-ranging. For one, the age of the children plays a huge role in parents’ experiences during this time. Parents of young children, such as myself, are trying to keep little ones engaged and entertained, those of older children are trying to find ways to balance staying involved without hovering. Parents of college-aged students have their own set of issues. Many want to treat their “children” as the adults they are but are torn about what the “right” thing to do is in such unprecedented times.

Another consideration is whether or not one or both parents are working and if so, whether that work is full-time, part-time, in the home or outside of the home. Some parents are still able to access childcare and/or in-person schooling (at least at this point), while others are not so fortunate. 

I have a toddler and a preschooler at home. This year our preschool chose to remain closed, and childcare is unavailable. We will attempt to work on pre-K skills with my oldest, while desperately trying to keep our youngest from her favorite activities of mayhem and destruction. My husband works full-time outside the home, and I fit remote working hours into mornings, evenings, nap-time, and (mostly) weekends. One other team member has an elementary school aged child who is learning remotely at home. With both parents working full-time jobs also remotely, there is frustratingly little time to fully engage as “assistant teachers.” Another team member has college-aged “children.” She has described an entirely distinct set of issues around learning to let go in order to allow these young adults to make their own decisions in how they approach their schooling this year. Her family has had multiple conversations about sharing and balancing household tasks (cleaning, laundry, preparing meals, walking the dog) as well as negotiating tight space for 4 separate but often simultaneous Zoom meetings. We also have a grandfather on the team who is working on “higher education capital“ with his high school age grandson, while his wife (grandma) is working on the 3Rs with her younger granddaughters.  They hope to aid in relieving parents and cementing generational bonds.Parents who work in “essential” roles often don’t have the luxury of being physically present. Some parents who are unable to stay home must ask older siblings and family members to watch over their youngest children. These examples are but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the range of experiences for parents at this time. 

How can each of us be “engaged” as parent-teachers while also staying “engaged” with our work? The unfortunate truth is that we can’t be fully engaged in each role at once. One thing we can try to do is be as present and positive as possible when we are able to turn our attention to supporting children’s school work. This is admittedly a tall order, and it won’t always be attainable. Think of it as how you would like to play out the role of parent-teacher on your best day, but know that there will be highs and lows. I can admit as a parent that we will all certainly be exhausted and stressed while working through the coming months. However, when we can muster it, we should try to be positive in our support of children’s learning. 

I am personally trying to think of this E as a quality over quantity. If parents are engaged when available and can make that engagement visible, manifest, the learning may be contagious. We all remember the teachers who inspired us and those who seemed less than enthusiastic about their subject matter. Which approach motivated you to apply yourself? 

Parents might also check in with children (or the whole family) to make sure they are aligned in their understanding of what is “engaging”.  It's important for the parent to adapt their ideas to what the child needs in order to spark interest and engagement (parent-child fit) particularly for young children, and to focus on things that are relevant to their lives for older teenagers.

Finding ways to involve children’s peers will be important (though admittedly difficult to do) at a time of social distancing. As one example, parents may consider socially distanced nature walks or outdoor discussions when the weather permits. Gamification has a huge pedagogical following; many online resources incorporate this type of interactive play as a means of increasing engagement in learning. Our own research hub, Project Zero, has curated a set of resources and tools for remote learning applicable to a range of subjects and grade levels. 

Excellence

Excellence in good work terms means to set the bar high and aim to master the field or role. For all the reasons previously discussed, most parents cannot expect to become masters of subject matter or pedagogy. Luckily, many parents have gone through the same grades and subject matter as their children. That being said, as time has passed, that knowledge is presumably eroded, and new information of all sorts has also likely emerged. 

Fortunately, this isn’t 1918. We have a wealth of information readily (and often freely) available. In person research at libraries may be off limits at the moment, but sites like Khan Academy, Coursera, and edX offer a slew of classes for little to no cost. If students are struggling with a particular topic, it is possible to supplement learning in short-time and without expending additional financial resources. 

This could also be a great time to sub-in grandparents or other available close trusted friends or relatives over Zoom or Facetime. It seems that spare time is either a feast or famine for those who are quarantining at home. If you know someone who is feeling a little stir crazy and looks like they could use a little break from nurturing their sourdough starter, see if they might be game for playing remote tutor from time-to-time. It may be a win-win for at least an hour! 

Good teachers don’t just know their subject, they also know how to effectively translate the information to their students. To be sure, parents won’t become master teachers overnight but, if they have the bandwidth, they can learn enough to at least consider themselves “apprentice teachers.” Again, there are amazing resources available online (some for-profit, while others are free). Another approach parents may consider is to speak with their children’s current and previous teachers to get a sense of what the strategies will be this year, and what has worked well for their child in the past. 

These are just a few examples that we hope can help parents to feel more confident and prepared. That being said, what parents can and cannot take on is entirely relative. Parents need to be flexible and patient with themselves as they navigate the school year. 

Ethics

As a society, we haven’t really had a chance to fully consider the ethics involved as parents help support student learning at home. Surely, parents will need to model ethical standards with their children while they precariously balance the twin roles of nurturer and educator. Children look to parents while developing their own moral compasses and this intensive time of parenting and teaching will expose both the good and the bad. As an example, both online and in-person learning is subject to cheating. Now it will be up to parents along with teachers to ensure that children learn the importance of academic honesty in their work.

Parents who have the means to hire tutors or join in private learning pods might reflect on their privileged position in society. Educational inequity has been a long-standing problem in our country and the pandemic is unfortunately exacerbating the issue. One way of modeling ethical behavior is to consider underwriting those who are less financially secure. This could take the form of donations to local schools for those less privileged; encouraging fellow learning pod members to sponsor the inclusion of a dedicated student who lacks the necessary resources; or contributing to funding towards childcare for essential workers. Many of these essential worker-parents may not be able to afford the expenditures tied to creating a fully functional remote learning environment; but it’s their work that keeps the rest of our society running. There are many obstacles to learning during a pandemic and these are just a handful of ideas of ways that you might consider your responsibility to those outside of your immediate social circle. 

Again, these are just a few examples of how parents might take ethics into account. New scenarios and dilemmas will likely present themselves over the course of the year and with them creative ways to “do the right thing” will also emerge. 

Whether you are a parent, a teacher, neither, or both, what do you think? Do you have any additional idea of ways you plan to embody the 3 Es? Which do you expect to be the most challenging for your family? 

Check out our Value Sort tool to help you think through how your own values might relate to the questions of the 3Es and how you might approach a new role in your own life.

August Wrap Up: 5 Articles Worth Sharing

by Shelby Clark

As we think about going back to school—whether hybrid, remote, or in person—dealing with our fifth month of COVID-19, and continuing to manage work-life balance, we at The Good Project wanted to spend some time gathering together our Top 5 articles of August that will help us think about what it means to do good work (work that is ethical, excellent, and engaging) during these turbulent times. Below, we discuss some of our favorite August reads. 

1. The Work You Do, The Person You Are. This 2017 article by the late Toni Morrison discusses the importance of being able to give back to family through work, even when you are a child. Ms. Morrison describes her own work as a child and how important she felt being able to give a dollar of each of her wages to her mother to be “used for real things.” Her father reminds her 1) Whatever the work is, do it well--not for the boss but for yourself; 2) You make the job; it doesn’t make you; 3) Your real life is with us, your family; and 4) You are not the work you do; you are the person you are. This article encourages us to think about how we can help children think about their own roles in the household and outside of the household as good work.

2. On Coronavirus Lockdown? Look for Meaning, Not Happiness. In this opinion piece from the New York Times, best selling author Emily Esfahani Smith describes how cultivating “tragic optimism”--maintaining hope and finding meaning despite obstacles, pain, and suffering--can help people live a flourishing life more so than purely seeking happiness. Esfahan Smith further discusses these ideas in her book, The Power of Meaning. At The Good Project, we often discuss meaning as part of being an engaged worker; how are you currently finding meaning in your work? Can you find benefits and meaning in your work or life in the face of the current pandemic and its challenges? 

3. The B Corp Movement Goes Big. Chances are you’ve heard of or shopped at a B Corp company: Patagonia, Athleta, Toms, Cabot Creamery, and Allbirds are all B Corporations, just to name a few. B Corps share the belief that companies need to move away from focusing solely on shareholder profit and instead focus on other stakeholders--such as employees, community, and the broader world. This article gives a broad overview of the B Corp movement and how it has begun to spread at scale with some of the first large multinational companies becoming certified B Corps. The B Corp movement urges us to ask: are companies that focus on shareholder profit doing good work? Are B Corps doing good work? How and why? 

4. An Ode to Assemblies. In a recent blog post regarding her work with the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, located in the UK, Rachael Hunter discusses how schools have continued to use virtual assemblies during the pandemic to encourage students’ character development. She particularly notes how assemblies can help students to develop their identity, can allow the student body to address difficult or important issues, and can give students a space to reflect. How could schools use assemblies--virtual or otherwise--to help students do good work? 

5. We Can’t Just Go Back to Normal. For educators looking for additional resources regarding how to teach about structural racism, SAGE has put out numerous pages of free research articles, blogs, and activity suggestions regarding structural racism and oppression. On the linked page, several best practices are covered, including team-facilitated dialogues, the creation of podcasts about race, the development of emotive capacities for facilitators, and interactive maps of racial residence patterns. SAGE has also released other tools surrounding these topics, such as the page “White Educators Must Put in the Work: Free Tools for Dismantling Biased Teaching.” As you investigate these tools, what does it make you think about what it means to be a good teacher at this moment in time?

Announcing: New Animated Dilemma Series

Elena is a high school student in New Jersey who immigrated with her parents to the United States from Mexico at a young age. She is proud of her Hispanic heritage, and she volunteers at a cultural center after school to share her culture with others. However, Elena notes that Hispanic people are treated unfairly in America, something she has witnessed personally with her father, who often has a difficult time staying employed in the construction industry. She is currently required by her school to take part in a senior internship experience, and she is applying for a few different opportunities. Elena is worried she will be discriminated against in her job search like she has seen happen to her father. She wonders if she should “hide” certain aspects of herself, such as her full name and experiences related to her ethnicity, from her resume when she is applying for the internships in order to eliminate the possibility that she will be discriminated against by hiring managers.

What would you do if you were Elena? If you were her friend, what would you advise Elena to do in this situation?

This dilemma and others are part of a new set of animated videos produced by The Good Project.

In the currently four-part series, we spotlight the following dilemmas from our collection, all of which are based on true stories from our research:

• Beyond the Science Club

• Tough Love

•   Money Troubles

• Hiding Your Heritage

Each of the stories concerns a central character who faces a challenging circumstance or difficult decision related to their work or an area of passion. For example, Tough Love is about a driven young gymnast who sometimes feels pressure to attend grueling practice sessions even when she is exhausted. Money Troubles is about a nonprofit leader who must decide whether to return donations to supporters after the promise of a matching grant falls through.

Intended for use with students ages 12 and up, educators can use these videos in a variety of ways in both in-person and virtual classrooms. For example, the videos can serve as:

• The basis of a group discussion or individual reflection, in real-time or on a discussion board, about the predicament or choice each character faces, taking into account the “3 Es of good work” (excellence, ethics, and engagement)

• A chance for students to make personal connections to similar situations that they may have encountered in their own lives, or an example that students can emulate as they make their own storyboards, comic strips, or videos about their own dilemma

• Inspiration for a role-playing game or debate, assigning students to play the parts of different interest groups in each dilemma and engage in perspective taking and conflict resolution

You can view all four of the videos in the slider below, and check back in the future for additional videos to be added to our resources under our Videos page.

Intertwining the Rings of Responsibility

by Kirsten McHugh, with thanks for editing by Howard Gardner and Lynn Barendsen

A popular activity coming out of The GoodWork Toolkit is “Thinking About Responsibility”. The activity asks the reader to “Think about an activity or work that is particularly important for you” and poses a simple but poignant question: “In this work, to whom or what do you feel responsible?”.

The Good Project relates the answers to these questions to what is termed “The Rings of Responsibility”. As seen in the graphic below, the rings are described as:

• responsibility to the self;

• responsibility to others (including family, peers, and colleagues);

• responsibility to the workplace;

• responsibility to the domain or profession; and

• responsibility to society.

In general, individuals—and especially young persons—tend to focus on the tightest rings, the self and others (e.g., close friends and family). Working adults often include their place of business, and sometimes the sector in which they work. Only the rare person—mostly older “trustees”—thinks about their relationship to the broadest society and to the whole planet. One reason why Greta Thunberg is so unusual is that, while still a young person, she has focused on responsibilities to the planet.

With all the recent changes to our daily lives and upheaval in our social and political realms, many of us have broadened the ambit of our thinking. The Rings of Responsibility can help us to conceptualize and to understand how current events may have nuanced our answers to the question “to whom or what do you feel responsible?”

The pandemic has made many of us more aware of how interconnected we all are—from our own social circles, to local communities, and even to our fellow human beings around the world. It has also brought up new ethical considerations. We wear masks in part to protect ourselves, but mostly to protect others, including persons whom we do not know. We have groceries packed by individuals who are exposed to others or delivered to our home by people whom we do not know. Front line workers from countries that we have not visited and may not have heard of risk their own lives—and put household family members at risk—in order to care for the sick. Our decisions not to shop in brick-and-mortar stores cause people to lose their jobs and whole companies to declare bankruptcy. Migrant workers who we count to clean our buildings are not allowed to return to their home country or to come back to ours. Women shoulder the brunt of household responsibilities and family care, despite one in three being an “essential worker.”

Looking at this change through the lens of the Rings of Responsibility, we can see how this crisis has expanded our purview past our normal consideration of the self and others, and pushed us to examine the outer rings in ways that we may not have been quite as aware of in the past. As a result, some of us are now seeing the rings as connected and intertwined rather than as distinct from one other. In some cases, this pushes us to act differently than we may have in the past. Among our own research team, one member has continued to pay their housekeeper even though she has not been able to come to work for three months. Similarly, another member paid pre-school tuition for four months even though the school was closed and the child was uninterested in engaging with teachers online.

The Black Lives Matter movement provides yet another impetus to reflect on the Rings of Responsibility. As many of us personally acknowledge that we may not have been as active as we would like to have been in the past, and use that as motivation to be more hands on at this time, we should also remember to address issues in our workplaces and professional domains. Perhaps your organization has always hired from within its own convenient networks, but the movement has made it clear that it is time to explore new avenues for engaging a more diverse pool of recruits. Put in Good Project terms—if you haven’t in the past, it is now time to move beyond the “neighborly morality” of hiring and promoting those from within your own community and begin to consider responsibility to the domain and society through diverse recruiting strategies. Efforts towards these outer rings can help contribute to a more equitable society moving forward. 

The ways in which each individual translates a renewed sense of responsibility into action will be unique and depend heavily on their role and profession. For example, a police officer assigned to a peaceful protest march might chose to walk alongside community members in solidarity; a sports journalist who wouldn’t normally cover the movement might feature a story about changing a racist team name or a story about an international athlete taking a knee in support of Black Lives Matter; a history teacher might create and share out age appropriate lesson plans outside of the expected curriculum, linking this movement to similar efforts in the past. Just recently, the head of NBCUniversal News Group announced his 50% Diversity Challenge (a commitment to hiring 50% women and 50% people of color), PepsiCo Inc. and Mars Inc. announced their dropping of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben’s brand lines due to racist roots, and high-ranking officers are speaking out against military bases named after confederate generals. We each have different levels of influence within our workplaces, and yet we all play a role in contributing to or deconstructing systems of oppression within professional domains.

The current pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement have pushed some of our thinking past the inner rings of self-others-workplace and further into the outer rings concerning the domains in which we work and the societies in which we live. In some cases, we have also begun to see and feel the interconnectedness of these rings and the effects of our actions within them. For this, perhaps we might also consider a more interconnected image of the rings (below) alongside the traditional bullseye (seen above).

Has your answer to the question, “To whom or what do you feel responsible?” changed over the past year? Have you considered how you can address these issues in your various rings of responsibility? More specifically, have you reconsidered your workplace hiring strategies? Have you shifted contributions to a new charity, or decided to donate time to a different organization? Have you considered a career change to directly address these issues in your professional life?

If you feel moved to share your own reflection on your responsibilities with us, The Good Project has expanded our efforts to improve our curriculum so that it better reflects the diversity of human experience. As we strive for greater variety and representation in our dilemmas, we are asking individuals to submit their own stories of responsibility by clicking the button below.

The Debate Over “Free Speech”: What Role Do Values Play?

by Danny Mucinskas

On July 7, 2020, Harper’s Magazine published an online letter titled “A Letter on Open Justice and Debate,” which warned readers of a “censoriousness” and “intolerance of opposing views” that appears to be spreading in the culture of the United States, leading to “public shaming and ostracism” and “calls for swift and severe retribution.” The letter was signed by dozens of prominent academics, writers, and others from across the political spectrum, including Margaret Atwood, Noam Chomsky, Francis Fukuyama, Linda Greenwood, Wynton Marsalis, Salman Rushdie, and Gloria Steinem.

Overall, the signatories expressed concern that free speech is being restricted, warning that lack of open debate “invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation.” They cite no specific cases but are ostensibly referring to several incidents that occurred in the wake of racial justice protests around the country, such as the firing of data analyst David Shor for posting research supporting non-violent protests and the resignation of James Bennet of The New York Times following the publication of a controversial op-ed from Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas calling for military intervention to quell unrest.

The letter immediately sparked controversy and criticism from detractors. Some felt that the letter was an attempt by those in positions of power to simply preserve ability to speak with impunity. Members of the transgender community spoke out, believing the letter to be problematic, especially as it had been endorsed by J.K. Rowling, who has recently come under fire for intolerance towards trans women. Others questioned why the letter was even published, at a time when the world is dealing with a global pandemic and the United States is facing a reckoning over racial violence and inequity. At least one signatory retracted her name, while another apologized for signing.

Others who signed have doubled down, though, saying that free speech and debate is a core tenet of liberalism, and that only by continuing to engage with and argue against opinions that we find uncomfortable will society make progress towards being more just and free.

One of The Good Project’s core principles is that personal views on contentious issues and dilemmas are influenced by the values that each of us believe are important, values such as those contained within our value sort activity. For example, an individual who values honesty above all else may choose not to cheat on a test; someone who values material well-being may choose to take a well-paying job they don’t enjoy simply to get a higher salary.

On a political level, Jonathan Haidt (who also signed the Harper’s letter), a social psychologist at New York University, has proposed moral foundations theory as a way to explain our policy preferences and reactions to social debates. Moral foundations theory proposes six core universal tensions that influence our views of ethical questions:

• Care vs. harm

• Fairness vs. cheating

• Loyalty vs. betrayal

• Authority vs. subversion

• Sanctity vs. degradation

• Liberty vs. oppression

Haidt’s research has shown that political preferences in the United States are tied to these foundations, with liberals prioritizing the care/harm and fairness/cheating dynamics above others and conservatives valuing all six foundations more equally. In the same way that differences in values cause people to make different individual decisions, the prioritization of moral foundations causes people to come to different political conclusions, aligning themselves with certain ideas, parties, or policies. The way that these foundations manifest in people’s opinions can also sometimes be confusing and vary or seem to conflict depending on the issue: someone who values the liberty of free speech may oppose abortion rights, an issue affecting women’s liberty, for reasons of sanctity; someone might support a free childcare policy for reasons of care, but oppose debt forgiveness for educational loans for reasons of fairness.

Perhaps the debate sparked by the Harper’s letter is a conflict between moral foundations of liberty and care playing out on the U.S. national stage. Should the liberty of free speech be valued at all costs, even if it causes harm to particular people or marginalized groups? Or should care be valued at all costs, even if it completely silences people from being able to express alternative viewpoints with liberty? Where is the line between these two extremes?

When I complete the value sort exercise, my most important values include “openness,” or being receptive to new ideas, and “pursuit of common good.” Perhaps this is why my opinions on this debate may feel frustratingly “in the middle” in an era of ever more polarized conversation on social media and a climate in which extreme views get the most attention in our media.

In my view, no person is entitled to have their opinions go unquestioned, and the panic surrounding “cancel culture,” which some of the signatories are likely reacting to, seems unfounded. Individuals with public platforms, including the letter’s endorsers, should always be prepared to defend their stances to others, such as those on social media who may disagree with their stances, sometimes in large numbers in a way that can be overwhelming. This is not “canceling,” but is a form of debate in itself. At the same time, we should not simply silence opinions we disagree with, or dole out extreme punishments for making mistakes. Changing other people’s values often takes engagement and convincing, not berating and silencing. As The Better Arguments Project (with which The Good Project recently collaborated) and their “Five Principles of a Better Argument” illustrate, debates require participants to listen passionately, embrace vulnerability, and make room to transform, even when we absolutely disagree and want to take a stand for our side.

However, I am only a single individual, and the majority view on these issues is likely to decide how care and liberty are to be prioritized and debates over free speech are to be resolved, if at all, since the fault lines represented by the moral foundations have existed in American society for centuries. Additionally, individual sectors, such as journalism, may develop new standards regarding speech that will set the norms for that field and the actors within it. For now, the answers to the questions I pose are difficult to discern, as we seem to be in the middle of a culture shift that will define the bounds of acceptability for years to come.

When does free speech “cross a line”? What consequences should an individual face for crossing that line? At what point could stifling free speech or shaming particular speech become dangerous? What values are most important to you in forming these opinions? If you are outside the United States, are there parallel or similar debates occurring in your country?

Recommended Reading: The “free speech debate” isn’t really about free speech