Global Citizens Initiative Brings 28 Fellows to Fifth Summer Youth Summit

By Daniel Mucinskas

The Global Citizens Initiative (GCI) is a non-profit dedicated to the empowerment of young people as global citizens to achieve positive change in the world. From July 27-August 4, 2018, GCI once again gathered a talented group of 28 high school students from around the world for a residential program focused on discussion-based learning, design thinking, and the development of “glocal” (think global, act local) service projects.

“Engage, Educate, Empower” below Global Citizens Initiative logo

As a part of each year’s summit, The Good Project’s framework of “good work,” defined by excellence, ethics, and engagement (the “3 Es”), is explored in plenary sessions and student-centered discussion based learning (Harkness™). This year, the three lectures concerned:

-Engagement – an examination of white privilege in the post-World War II United States through the story of one white family, including redlining practices from banks that exacerbated racial inequities and have left questions about how to engage with this historical legacy in American society today

-Ethics – the dilemmas and questions posed by advances in technology, such as social credit systems and live crime reporting, and the unresolved balance or “give and take” between science and ethics

-Excellence – thoughts on giving children the opportunity to freely explore the world without preconceptions, to make mistakes, and to come to their own conclusions about how to live an excellent life.

Following these sessions, we had the opportunity to interview three Fellows in attendance at the Summit about their learning goals, their ideas of global citizenship and the 3 Es, and their service projects.

Below is a summary of the conversation, edited for clarity and confidentiality.

Q: You all mentioned you were motivated to come to GCI after hearing about it from your peers. What are your friends saying about the program, and why did you think it would be a good fit for you?

Group photo of fellows with posters

Student 1: I feel there is less talk from my friend about the actual week of the Summit but more about what happens afterward. GCI is a community, and you have access to the resources and the skills to make an impact in the world.

Student 2: For me, it was the way my friend talked about the implementation of his service project.

Student 3: I researched it after my friends a year above me came. The focus resonated with me.

Q: I know you’re all still in the midst of the Summit, but what do you feel this experience has taught you so far?

3: We’re students from all around the world, which is eye-opening. I’m surrounded by people that want to make change, and we can learn from one another how to implement change in everyday life.

2: There aren’t many opportunities you get in life to be part of a community that is as diverse as the GCI Fellows. I can see that this program is special; you need access to a lot of resources in order to build something like this. I have had discussion-based classes back home at my school, but it is always one or two students who dominate the conversation. All the kids in this program are the ones who like to speak up; we are all the leaders in our classrooms back home, so I’m hearing many different perspectives I often don’t have access to.

1: I really enjoy the Harkness discussions, which are new to me. However, I have a concern. How does this one week make you into a “global citizen”?

3: It’s not solely about the time we spend here. The nine-day summit is preparation for the long “race.”

2: I came here with the misconception that the goal was to have a fully formed service project after 9 months. But now I disagree with that idea. This program is about the meaning of good global citizenship; the point is more about our paths and the time we spend with this cohort of Fellows than the final product we create.

Q: How has this experience helped develop your communication and creative thinking skills?

1: By watching people communicate, like the faculty and the other Fellows, I can emulate them as role models. The greatest asset of this program isn’t its educational model; it’s the people.

3: All of the speakers we are exposed to through this program share their advice with us, which gives us the opportunity to learn more efficiently.

2: The program has shown me that I have to operate with a certain level of humility. We are having an experience in which we are communicating with people from all over the world. We are all hoping to be leaders in the world in some way in the future, and as a part of being leaders, we should be able to communicate with people with whom we don’t have as much in common, and do it successfully.

1: I love the program, but I do wonder how different it will be from college.

2: In college, it’s easy to drift and end up only becoming friends with people you are comfortable with.

1: I just think that true pluralism takes a lot longer to develop than the nine days we are here.

3: That might be true. But this Summit was programmed for us to develop as much as possible. The pure purpose of this summit is to engage. I’ve never had a roommate, so having two roommates is such a new experience for me. I have learned so much about my comfort zone and about how to communicate on a basic level.

Q: How do this week’s experiences of creative thinking and communicating with others compares to experiences you’ve had at your own schools?

1: I’m privileged to be able to go to school [back home] where a lot of others are disadvantaged. But the teaching there is very linear. You aren’t supposed to have an opinion as a student.

3: This program is my school “on drugs.” It’s intensive. My school’s purpose is to do exactly what we are learning here, but I’m acquiring skills that are more utilitarian and applicable to my everyday life.

2: In my school, we talk extensively about ethics, identity, race, gender. But this program is about planning to taking tangible steps towards making the world better. We have discussions at my school that are often single perspective; since everyone agrees with one another already, it’s “preaching to the choir.” Here, every comment raises a new concern or standpoint I wouldn’t have in my own classroom.

Q: You have been exploring the themes of excellence, ethics, and engagement here as well. What do these topics mean to you?

1: They’re all intertwined. In order to feel connected with your work, you have to be engaged, and be excellent.

3: My sense of these terms has developed. For example, my understanding of being engaged has evolved because now I see in this Summit how engaged other people are in their work. Ethically, I am now able to see issues in a different way. For excellence, I see it all around me, being surrounded by Fellows who are leaders in their schools. We have a responsibility to be excellent in the world.

2: I’m still struggling with excellence, but the level of engagement here is amazing. I’ll never have a class of students like this. It’s all concentrated, so we have to make the most of our time. In terms of ethics, it’s become sort of a buzzword, something to be incorporated into a business model. But this entire Summit is built on a foundation of ethics. You can’t be a global citizen without being ethical.

Q: What is being ethical?

1: Ethics is very relative. We had a discussion this week about our relationships with nature and eating meat. Someone from the west might think one thing, and someone from the east another. I’m leaning more towards a deontological approach to ethics myself, looking at whether our actions are good.

2: I think it’s about being empathetic. You need to have the capacity to think and act with empathy, keeping other people and the implications of what we say and do in mind.

3: I’m still struggling with this because it’s such an abstract concept. If I say one thing, it won’t do it justice, so I’d prefer not to answer.

Q: Tell me a little about the projects you are designing.

1: I have a social enterprise working with child cancer patients on crafts to help them pay for their chemotherapy treatments. I want to build a website and help teach them entrepreneurship skills.

2: The problem I am trying to overcome is bridging of different communities in in my city. People tend to forget how segregated it is and how little interaction there is between different communities. There is a lack of understanding and empathy, and a very large gap between public education and elite private education. We are grappling at my private school with how we can provide a good education when in some ways we are damaging public education. My project is a school partnership model between my school and a public school, involving mentorship and exchanges.

3: My country has been accepting a lot of refugees from Syria. Young female refugees from Syria are at a vulnerable place in their lives. Sexism does exist in the world, and because of their refugee status, it’s amplified. I currently teach English to these refugees, and many women are not allowed to enter the classroom because there are men present. I want to create a space to connect young female refugees with career counselors and college counselors so that they can continue their education, and also have access to therapists to deal with trauma.

Q: What does it mean to do good in the world, or to have an impact in the world?

3: To contribute as much as possible. That can mean many things: making people happy, using your time efficiently, or doing what you do wholeheartedly. Get out of your comfort zone and overstep the boundaries you have set for yourself. Grow. If an individual sets of out to grow, that’s good.

1: If I were to think about doing good for the world, it’s not about the community, or your country; it’s about the world. We are stewards of the earth, and we need to leave it better than we found it. If I’m a citizen of one country, I might go and exploit another for the gain of my countrymen. But that’s not being a good global citizen.

2: Doing good goes beyond yourself. It’s education and empowerment. Those are words that come to mind. If you’re going to have an impact, providing education and empowerment to people so that they can also do good seems like a sustainable path.

1: But I don’t think we should confine our ideas to people. If I go and plant trees, that’s good for the planet. Doing good can be anything and anyone.

2: Yes, it’s impacting the world as a whole for the better.

On Securing Support for Research: Should One Hit the Pause Button?

By Howard Gardner

Those of us who conduct research in psychology, education, and related fields are dependent on external support to cover our expenses. For half a century, my colleagues and I at Harvard Project Zero have been fortunate to receive funding from various sources. In most cases, the funding process has been smooth and unproblematic; but in at least three cases, we have decided not to accept further funding.

Here I describe our overall history with fund raising; share three discombobulating experiences; and suggest some general guidelines.

First, the good news. From 1970-1980, almost all of our funding came from the federal government—The National Institutes of Health, The National Science Foundation, and a now defunct educational funder, The National Institute of Education. Then Ronald Reagan became president and made known his conviction that “social science is socialism.” Confronted with that dismissive attitude, we showed little hesitation in shifting our requests to large national foundations—The Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, The MacArthur Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, and The Spencer Foundation (which focuses on educational research)—just to name a few. These foundations followed widely accepted peer review methods with respect to requests for funding; they did not attempt to micro-manage or redirect the research; and we never worried that any of the funding would be considered suspect. Whatever the value and attitudes of the original philanthropist (e.g. Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller), the foundations by that time conduced business in a professional manner.

The bad news about funding from private foundations is that most program officers (the individual who control the purse strings) get bored with funding the same old institutions and causes—no matter how worthy. (And of course, we thought all of our causes were supremely worthy!) Accordingly, these philanthropoids (as the dispensers of funds are sometimes called) want to move on to support new and more exciting (and perhaps more needy) projects; it proved difficult to obtain continuation funding indefinitely.

Starting 25 years ago, we were saved by three factors:

1) Funding from a long-time anonymous funder, whose “cover” was eventually blown by The New York Times—the Atlantic Philanthropies, bankrolled completely by Charles Feeney. (Despite the fact that we received several million dollars from AP, none of us ever met Mr. Feeney.)

2) Smaller foundations, family foundations, and wealthy individuals. As these funders were less likely to follow standard peer review processes, a lot of this funding depended on good personal relations with the funders or with their designated program officers.

3) Our own honoraria and gifts that we were able to direct toward our research.

Also, somewhat to our surprise, and to our delight, we began once again to receive funding from some large national foundations. The previous project officers had resigned or retired and, in the absence of flawless institutional memory, our requests for funding were treated as “new” opportunities.

I am very pleased to say that, in my memory, no funder ever pressed us to come up with certain results, rather than others. Also, before accepting money from the anonymous foundation, we confirmed its trustworthiness with knowledgeable leaders at Harvard.

Yet, on three occasions alluded to above, we made the difficult decision not to receive any further funding from a source:

1) A funder insisted that we be prepared to travel long distances, without little or no prior warning. And these demands proved exhausting.

2) A funder was carrying out work of which we did not approve and yet wanted to have our imprimatur on that work.

3) A funder was convicted of a crime. I let the funder know that under no circumstances would or could I accept any further funding.

I consider myself very fortunate not to have encountered more difficulties of this sort. At the same time, I have to add that at various times, I’ve made a decision not to pursue a funding opportunity; and I have advised colleagues and friends to refrain as well. It’s much easier not to become involved with a dubious source of funding than it is to establish ties that one subsequently has to break. The dubious source of funding can be from a corporation (e.g. a gun manufacturer, a cigarette company) whose products make me uncomfortable; or, for instance, from a source that has no apparent interest in the research per se but just wants to have a connection to the university.

In the current funding climate, where government funding is insufficient and the once dominant foundations are being dwarfed by individuals who are as wealthy or wealthier than Henry Ford or John D. Rockefeller, the temptations are great to ignore these warning signs and simply accept funds. This is especially so if one’s own salary or the salaries of close associates are at stake. That’s why I hope that more disinterested (neutral, objective) parties—for example, the government or foundations or individuals who are genuinely interested in the research but disinterested in the specific results—will re-emerge. And I hope that these entities will follow peer-review procedures in considering proposals and will give the researchers latitude in how they proceed. In return, the researchers must strive to carry out work of high quality; inform the sponsors of significant changes in procedures; and, of course, make the findings available promptly and publicly, while also crediting the sources for their support.

To phrase it in the spirit of this blog: Research is most likely to work well if all parties act in a professional manner.

Read Our June 2018 Newsletter

By Daniel Mucinskas

The June 2018 edition of The Good Project newsletter is now available!

In this edition, we cover a new digital civics toolkit co-created by Carrie James of the Good Play project. We also feature Howard Gardner’s biographical interview in the Harvard Gazette and other interesting links. The Good Idea of the Month is Leadership.

Click here to read the newsletter in full.

The Place Model: Are Inclusive Professionals an Ideal or Oxymoron?

In developed countries, few institutions have been as powerfully challenged as the professions. In the 1950s and early 1960s, professions like law, medicine, education, and the clergy were considered to be the gold standard of occupations; talented young people aspired to join their ranks. But in the last few decades, due to a range of factors, professions have become far less attractive occupations, and some experts question whether they can—or should—survive.

In this context, Linda Clarke’s blog post, which we are happy to publish below, is timely and useful. She has developed a scheme, called The Place Model, that delineates factors that influence the status of candidate professions. In applying The Place Model, she points out a variety of professional niches that are currently occupied.

Like many who study the professions, Clarke is skeptical about their claims to be highly respected—in the way that they were a half century ago. Indeed, though she does not go so far as Richard and Daniel Susskind, who wonder whether the professions as we know them are even viable, she is agnostic on the issue.

I also worry about whether, in the future, there will be recognizable professions, with the concomitant status and expertise. But I very much hope that we will continue to value individuals who behave in a professional manner. As we all know, there are certified professionals who disgrace their chosen professions, even as there are workers who may have little status but who behave in responsible and disinterested ways. I want to live in a world where it’s an honor to say of someone, “He or she is behaving like a true professional.”

-Howard Gardner

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By Linda Clarke

‘Professional’ is a slippery and overused term, but there are two essential features of what it means to be a professional.

The first of these fundamental characteristics is expertise, which includes both specialized knowledge and skills and trustworthiness. The second, which is often consequent to the first, is esteem. Professionals are learned and are not amateur, their behavior is reliably moral and not capricious or dishonest, and they are, therefore, able to be trusted to carry out complex and important roles.

In order to compare and critique these features, the Place Model (Clarke, 2016) combines:

1. The Geographer’s view of place as an expanding (learning) horizon of developing expertise; and,

2. The Sociologist’s notion of place as public esteem.

In what follows I briefly outline and exemplify the components of the Place Model, which resembles a graph. The sub-heading of the Model asks ‘Who is my professional today?’ 

Figure 1. The Place Model (Clarke, 2018)

The horizontal axis represents a cumulative, career-long professional learning journey which combines local and global understandings. Crucially, this axis is not a history (not merely a question of time spent on the job).

The vertical axis is based on public perceptions of the esteem in which professionals are held, ranging from low to high.

The intersection of these axes affords the creation of four quadrants, which represent four types of professional workers: proto-professionals, precarious professionals, the deprofessionalised, and the fully professional. A fifth element of the Model sits outside the axes, where the answer to the question ‘Who is my professional today?’ is ‘No one.’

It is possible to populate each of the five sections of the Place Model using illustrative examples drawn from a range of professions in order to bring the model to life and to provoke questions (Clarke, 2016, a workshop for professional educators and their students).

No professional: Outside the axis of the Place Model, there is place to consider, inter alia, areas in which professional expertise is lacking. Consider the plight of the 57 million learners without access to a teacher, the approximately 517 million people in developing countries who are visually impaired because they do not have access to corrective treatment from a doctor, street purveyors of pharmaceutical products from a bucket… and also the current proliferation of ‘virtual’ professionals trained fully online.

Proto-professionals: The term proto–professional has been used here to indicate that this quadrant is home to those aspiring professionals in the first stages of their learning journey or sectors that have not fully achieved professional status. Some professionals may (whether by compulsion or choice) be limited in their learning journey to this quadrant, which can include craftworkers or technicians, increasingly liable to replacement by robots.

Precarious Professionals: At least two worrying and quite contrasting categories of professionals are found in this quadrant: those who might be described as ‘unprofessional’, and those who are unlikely to remain in their profession, the ‘transitory.’ The former engage in a wide range of destructive veniality but may find themselves in this quadrant only if this behavior is exposed. The latter may have limited support or incentive to enable them to remain or progress in their profession.

The Deprofessionalised: This ever- expanding quadrant is also home to strange bedfellows. As retirement ages increase sometimes (and vanishes), it may include ever more of the inveterate cynics whose words and attitudes can discourage both colleagues and clients. In this quadrant, we also find those senior professionals who have been cast down to this place by those who disparage the professions (for example, senior teacher education academics in the UK, dismissed and headlined as ‘the enemies of promise’ by the Secretary of State for Education as he sought to create rhetorical space for reform). The quadrant may also be considered the locus of those migrant and refugee professionals who find that their previous qualifications and experience count for little in their new home; in a world where 1 in every 131 people is a refugee, this is a widespread problem.

Exclusive and Inclusive Professionals: In the original version of the Place Model, the professional quadrant was designated as the home of the virtuous professional who was expert, yet still learning, and likely to be a highly esteemed role model. However, it is more realistic to see this quadrant as also being a smug and snug home to the learned but exclusive professionals, critiqued most thoroughly by Bourdieu and seen by George Bernard Shaw as conspiracies against the laity. We can also construct, at least in theory, a more virtuous conception of inclusive professionals (whilst being aware of the potential for this to be an oxymoron). Thomas More’s concept of Utopia has room for both—in the original Greek, it may mean either ‘no place’ or ‘good place’; of course, reality may be less accommodating. Nonetheless, the other parts of the Place Model point towards potential characteristics of inclusive professionals, for example:

• Including those most able but least likely to join the professions;

• Professional associations and, indeed, individual professionals choosing to help bring an end to the ‘no professional’ sector or standing up to government ministers who seek to de-skill, technicize and disparage their younger colleagues.

• Those working to extend and enhance career trajectories.

• Those emphasizing professions (and even ‘new’ professions) to do things which robots do not do well, such as tasks requiring caring and creativity.

In sum, the Place Model is an analytical tool which can be used for re-imagining and comparing all professions, past, present and future. Like all models it is limited, like all maps it is subjective. Nonetheless, in mapping both the varied dystopias of professionals, and identifying an alternative, thinkable utopia (inclusive professionals), the Model provides a useful taxonomy which affords room for both criticality and optimism.

Questions about professionals of course remain, not least whether they are necessary, luxurious, or irrelevant.

Linda Clarke is Professor of Education and Research Director for Education in Ulster University in Northern Ireland.

Howard Gardner on His Life and Scholarly Work

By Daniel Mucinskas

Howard Gardner in his office

In the summer of 2017, Howard Gardner had a series of conversations with reporters from the Harvard Gazette, Harvard University’s official news website. The topics of these discussions ranged from Gardner’s early life and family to his lifelong scholarly work, including The Good Project.

In May 2018, the Gazette released an in-depth profile of Gardner based on these conversations. We are pleased to share this interview with you, accessible by clicking here. In this piece, Gardner talks about the influences, challenges, surprises, and regrets that have influenced his personal life and career trajectory as a scholar and researcher.

Please feel free to post any reactions or reflections in the comments section below.