Good Work for Dutch Civil Servants

By Hans Wilmink

Introduction

Several months before national elections, the Dutch coalition government resigned in January 2021 over what has come to be known as the ‘allowance scandal.’[1] [2] For years, an inhumane and unlawful execution of day-care allowance policies took place, ruining thousands of already vulnerable families. In this blog post, Hans Wilmink of the Professional Honor Foundation briefly summarizes the scandal and formulates several key points for Good civil servant Work.

The day-care allowance scandal

The Netherlands has a relatively wide array of social welfare services, ranging from unemployment benefits, to disabled care, to youth care, to day-care support. However, all these services come with strong surveillance measures that serve to safeguard the spending of tax-payers’ money and ensure honesty and integrity. For day-care, parents are eligible to receive an allowance, provided that they pay a certain amount of the contribution themselves and meet some other requirements.

The Dutch day-care allowance policy came into force in 2005. Parents can get up to 230 hours a month of day-care reimbursed. The exact number of reimbursed hours depends upon others on parents’ number of employment hours. The day-care allowance can count up to large sums of money per family, especially for lower-income families. After the day-care allowance is granted, it is paid either to the parents or to the day-care facility directly. Parents must pay a part of day-care costs themselves as contribution. The amount of that personal contribution depends upon income. 

Already since the beginning, strict surveillance had been in place. However, in 2013, after media coverage exposed fraud and misusage of the day-care allowance, public uproar erupted, leading to exceptionally strong surveillance measures of the program. While the scale of the fraudulent practices within government allowances turned out to be relatively small, the strong surveillance nevertheless led to a situation in which even the smallest mistakes were labelled as fraud. Moreover, in those cases labeled as fraud, day-care allowances were all reclaimed from the families that had received them for previous years. Individuals who stood up in protest of this practice, such as a legal advisor who addressed the unlawfulness and injustice of these practices,[3] were overruled and put aside.

In the years that followed – up until 2019 – ten thousands of families with lower and middle class incomes were all of a sudden saddled with ten thousands of euros in debt. The social consequences for many families were devastating, including house eviction, broken relationships, and medical problems.

A parliamentary inquiry commission scrutinized the wrongdoings in the summer of 2020.[4] During public hearings of top civil servants and politicians, including the Dutch prime minister, the politicians themselves expressed shock about the scale of the consequences for families. However, they argued that they had always been unaware of the scope and severity of the scandal.[5] The commission concluded in December 2020 that the very foundations of the rule of law were violated: the three powers of state – the legislative, the executive, and the judicial branches of government – did not function as proper checks and balances, keeping each other in check as should be the case in a state governed by rule of law. On the contrary, they strengthened one another in unjust and inhumane actions perpetrated against citizens. The commission’s report led to the Dutch coalition government resignation in January 2021.

The tasks for government

In the Netherlands, this scandal has raised the question of whether policy implementation – especially in social welfare – is too strict and therefore unjust. Two recommendations seem to gain wide acknowledgement:

1) Laws and policies need to leave discretionary space for implementers. After all, not all unique circumstances and contextual factors can be anticipated in the real world.

2) In the implementation of social policies, the principle of proportionality should be abided by. This principle states that a governing body has to try to come to decisions that do justice to all relevant interests, in order to ensure those decisions are lawful and just in the eyes of the citizens involved.

What this means for civil servants: dilemmas and tensions for Good Work?

When discretion of implementation increases, that power is not a freedom that can be used arbitrarily. Instead, it is a responsibility that civil servants need to fulfil professionally, geared towards a righteous and humane delivery of public services. After all, when many tasks and services are orchestrated by the government – as is the case in the Netherlands – expectations are high. Government officials have to respect and abide by the rule of law, ensuring high standards of precision and good governance. Needless to say, the aforementioned principle of proportionality, badly afflicted in the day-care allowance scandal, is one of these standards.

In likely 20,000 cases, families have been disproportionately affected by the reclamation of large sums of money. For example, if a parent paid 500 euros too little in personal contribution, or provided incomplete information, the total sum of allowance received – sometimes reaching ten thousand euros – was reclaimed by government. While a reduction of the allowance and possibly a fine could have served public interest, the total reclamation of funds is out of proportion to the offense, leading to severe and acute financial problems.

Good Work for civil servants according to the Professional Honor Foundation

Large organizations and bureaucracies have a tendency to easily lose sight of individual human cases. This is certainly the case when millions of decisions are involved, as with day-care allowances on the scale of an entire country. Large-scale automation of processes which emphasize technology and systems thinking is inevitable. Tasks and responsibilities of civil servants are split into separate units, causing bureaucratic systems’ behavior. Both civil servants and their managers have a tendency to limit their own engagement and ethical responsibility.

The Professional Honor Foundation strives to promote civil servants’ ‘craftmanship’, using the concepts of the Good Project to counter this allegedly ‘unescapable’ bureaucratic systems behavior. Against the background of the day-care allowance scandal, the foundation formulates six starting points for good civil service work:

1. Implementation without discretionary space is incompatible with Good Work. Straightforward application of rules does not do justice to complex realities, obstructing Good Work.

2. Automation is not a goal in itself, but a means that could also be used for Good Work purposes. Automation systems have been used to formulate ‘high risk’-profiles for fraud detection. The same systems can be used to formulate ‘high risk’-profiles for the unintended disadvantaging of citizens. This could help single out special cases that require more attention and care. If necessary, a feedback chain can be organized to report to policy makers, legal advisors, and governors.

3. Within this Good Work feedback, one should strive for excellence in content and technique. Knowledge about the goal of regulations, the considerations necessary to make decisions, the appropriate principles that are at play, the way systems operate, and skills for feedback is necessary.

4. Professionals should seek alignment when filling in their discretionary space (by engaging with colleagues, managers, and eventually legislators).

5. Good Work for civil servants implies aiming for plurality when it comes to engagement and ethical responsibility. This simultaneously serves the organization, colleagues, public service, politics, and society.

6. Good Work for civil servants requires a form of open accountability for the way civil servants fill in their discretionary space, enabling judicial review at all times.

No policy or act is able take into account all possible circumstances individual citizens or organizations are confronted with. However, implementation has to ensure a legitimate and fair execution of policies. Organizations and civil servants involved in implementation have to apply generic legal frames to concrete and specific cases. The considerations and decisions necessary for that require thorough professional motivation and peer feedback. This can be organized and trained for throughout organizations. It is also possible that new modes of public accountability are necessary for public services. However, successful change requires managerial and political support – or even better: bravery.

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About the author

Hans Wilmink (1948) was trained as a sociologist and a senior administrative officer. From 1982, he worked for the ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations fulfilling several positions. Since 2013, he has worked as a volunteer for the Professional Honor Foundation, helping to apply the Good Work Toolkit into Dutch practices with a specific focus on Dutch government. In spring 2020, the Professional Honor Foundation published an essay by Hans titled Beyond angry and careless: a sense of the rule of law as moral compass for government and citizen [title translated from Dutch].

About the Professional Honor Foundation

Group coaching

The Professional Honor Foundation offers group coaching for professionals. The approach – using participants own experiences and cases – appeals to professionals’ intrinsic motivation to strive for good work and challenges professionals to stand for the quality of their work and to do what they deem really necessary. Our central coaching question is: do we do our work right, and do we do the right things? The Professional Honor Foundation has shaped this coaching into two variants: Good Work Trajectories and Good Work Places. Both are based on the valuable insights of The Good Project.

Empirical research

The Professional Honor Foundation empirically examines professionalism, publishing about research in various sectors/professions, including education, healthcare, accountancy, and town clergy.

Keynotes

The Professional Honor Foundation gives keynotes on professionalism and themes like craftmanship, engagement, responsibility, professional pride, integrity, and authority.

Publications

The Professional Honor Foundation publishes books on professionalism, professional honor and good work, often in collaboration with professional practice and science. Published work includes studies on public professionals holding authority, craftsmanship of civil servants, and moral authority of policing.

One edition was published in English: Professional Pride- A powerful force, edited by Thijs Jansen, Gabriël van den Brink & Jos Kole, p. 366, 2010, Amsterdam: Boom Publishing. This book contains the professional Honor Foundation’s mission: Professional Pride as a program - Onwards to a different administrative philosophy.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/15/world/europe/dutch-government-resignation-rutte-netherlands.html

[2] https://www.government.nl/documents/speeches/2021/01/15/statement-by-prime-minister-mark-rutte-on-the-government%E2%80%99s-resignation

[3] https://www.trouw.nl/binnenland/de-afdeling-toeslagen-zette-de-ambtenaar-die-stop-riep-op-een-zijspoor~bed2f08b/

[4] https://www.tweedekamer.nl/sites/default/files/atoms/files/20201217_eindverslag_parlementaire_ondervragingscommissie_kinderopvangtoeslag.pdf

[5] https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-lodewijk-asscher-labor-leader-tax-office-scandal/

GCI Series: Michi and Good Work

The Global Citizens Initiative hosts an annual Fellowship Summit to cultivate young “global citizens” to become “lifelong leaders of positive change.” In July of 2019, 28 high school students from 15 different countries gathered together for a 10-day experience in Tokyo, Japan. These students are each responsible for the design and development of a service learning project to be carried out over the course of a 10 month period. Their projects are “glocal” – addressing a global problem at a local level. In Tokyo, the students were supported by a group of Teaching Assistants, themselves all alumni of the GCI Fellowship Program. The Good Project has been in consultation with GCI since its formation, and we follow the work of its participants with interest. We recently had the opportunity to catch up with several GCI alums and ask them about their work, their thoughts about Good Work, and reflections about their experiences with GCI.

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About Michi Zaya Tumur 

Michi Zaya Tumur is from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.  Currently living in New York City,  Michi is working on a dual-degree program at The New School's College of Performing Arts, pursuing a BFA in Dramatic Arts and an MA in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship. She strongly believes in the power of creative education, so her objective as a teaching artist has been to use interdisciplinary theater and arts to create thought-provoking work that connects human beings. This is especially important to Michi when it comes to telling the stories of those whose voices are not often heard. Through her work, she hopes to build understanding among communities by encouraging audiences to experience empathy and new perspectives. She also has interests in debate, public speaking, and dance.

 What does it mean to do “good work” today?

Many people forget the value of self-care and the importance of intersectionality. I think “good work” today finds a balance between those things. It can be work that enriches the self in order to better serve your community and other communities. It can be work that thinks outside-the-box and reaches causes that are rarely, if ever, given attention. To me, the bottom line is that your heart is in the right place and wants to see a difference that benefits the world.

That being said, I don’t think it needs to be a massive, world-changing task. Recycling your bottles is good work. Participating in an internationally recognized initiative to protect the environment is good work. Some of the best “good work” I’ve seen has started small. Ridiculously small. The beautiful thing about that is that it makes it easy for anyone to do.

In the theatre community, we have a lot of LGBTQ+ artists working hard to gain recognition in an industry that, like many industries, is still run primarily by old white men. I once sat in a production meeting and witnessed a wonderful production manager quickly check-in that she was using the correct gender pronouns for a cis white female playwright who was not in the room but was being brought up in conversation. The tiny action could have been missed by anyone who was paying loose attention. However, seeing this consideration be put in so simply and casually was so impactful to me that it became a practice I now regularly use in conversations and in my rehearsal rooms as a director or stage manager. This small step has made the productions I’ve worked on incredibly warm, welcoming environments for all, regardless of gender identities beyond the binary being present or not.

Tell us about your understanding of the community.  What are the communities of which you feel a part?

To me, communities have two major identifiers:

1. People in a shared space/interest group/relationship.

2. They support one another, in different ways and in different measures.

The community I feel a strongest connection to will always be artists. After that, it would be my family (both by blood and by choice). Artists who come from diverse and unique backgrounds are always the ones I can resonate with the most. In my first year of college, one of my design professors had said to me “the more personal you get, the more relatable your work will be”. I’ve found this true over and over again. Despite being a theatre artist, I’ve found a wonderful community among dancers, illustrators, and even culinary artists.

The art community is intersectional as well. I love working with other artists of color in the U.S., artists from international backgrounds, queer artists, Mongolian artists, teaching artists, interdisciplinary theatre artists, the list goes on- all of whom I can identify with.  Everyone has a story that you will either find yourself in, or you will discover more about yourself. I’ve had the pleasure of being surprised by relating to work I’d never imagined I would. In the rehearsal process for theatre, the preliminary stages are called “table-work”, which is my favorite part of the process due to the amazing things you can learn about your collaborators. One night, a table-read rehearsal of half the play led to a conversation with a fellow actor that lasted all night discussing our experiences and values. I learned there can be similarities in growing up in an Asian household to growing up in a strict and sheltering Catholic household. I also learned there are some differences I’ll never fully understand, but can appreciate deeply.

Is there a particular role model who has helped inspire you to do “good work”, either real or fictional? What is it about this role model that has inspired you?

Mine is definitely fictional, and this may sound ridiculous, but it’s myself. Not in a conceited way, however. I don’t see my current self as my role model, but I see the version of myself that I would like to be as a role model. I imagine someone who is taking initiative, reaching all the goals I want to reach, doing the things for communities I would like to do, and I paint a picture in my mind of that person as me. Then, I try my best to become that person.

Of course, I gain a lot of inspiration from my parents, my peers, and my mentors from all parts of life, but I think everything they have instilled in me becomes combined with the imaginary me who has done everything I’d like to do. I find that as much as others can voice their belief in me or support me, I need to believe in myself as well. Being my own little cheerleader helps, because even if a part of me is terrified that I cannot accomplish something, the imaginary me already has accomplished it.  So, why can’t that be the real me?

Tell us about your work.  What projects are you currently involved with? How might what you are doing now relate to the work you began with GCI?

When I was a Fellow with GCI in 2016, my concern was improving creative education in Mongolia. My project eventually evolved into creating a space for performing arts for students, faculty, and staff at my K-12 school. Now, my school has a bi-annual talent show called “Hobby’s Got Talent”, in which anyone can participate and showcase their talents. The year I graduated, I got to see unforgettable performances.  My physics teacher performed opera, and an impressive rock band was formed by fourth-grade students. It was wonderful to see people in my community truly express themselves and show each other their passions. I remember seeing one of my classmates tearfully prepare for her performance - it was an opportunity that she’d never had before, and I could tell it was incredibly meaningful for her to be able to sing for our whole school in our final year before graduation.

Currently, I have been doing more writing. In particular, I would like to write stories and plays about Asian teenage boys. I never see Asian teenage boys on stage or on screen, and I only know one male East Asian actor in my entire college program. Yet, I grew up around so many Asian teenage boys who all are full of life and have experienced the things that make us hurt, smile, cry, laugh, and fall in love. I think they deserve to share that with others, so I'm writing about them.

I like to think that I’ve continued to work on giving people who aren’t heard very often a chance to tell their stories and show us who they are, beyond the surface.

How do you feel your current projects are connected or not to this view of “good work”?

I grew up wanting to be an artist without any means to express myself. I had no actual theatre experience prior to college, beyond acting in fifteen minute plays in a gym that could hardly fit a comfortable audience of fifty people. I never saw characters who looked like me, or stories that truly reflected my own. I spent my childhood wanting and worrying about whether or not I’d ever get to do what I love. Luckily, I managed to get here. Now, my work is driven towards making sure other young artists, who have the same fears as myself, have a space to feel like they do have a chance. I want others to feel hope. Being able to do that for others does everything for me.

 How and where do you find meaning in your work?

One of my acting professors once said, “If you feel frustrated afterwards, you held back. If you feel good afterwards, you were truthful.” This was life-changing for me. I think to find meaning in my work, I need to be truthful and I need to delve into the work without holding back. The more I can be honest, vulnerable, and effective with my work, the more I feel I’ve gained something from it while putting out all that I could have for the world. Even if my professor was referring to acting, this was an important lesson in everything I do. Keeping this in mind makes the work I do feel tenfold more impactful and gratifying. While I cannot do much to control the outcomes or impact of my work, I can find meaning in the work’s journey.

Tell us about your biggest challenges, and how you work to tackle them.

I struggle in finding balance between myself and my work. I’ve had many times where I will deny myself basic needs such as sleep or a healthy diet in the name of “working hard”. Every time this has happened, I’ve re-learned the lesson of how working “hard” non-stop only leads to debilitating yourself to the point where you cannot work at all. In my third year of college, I had a schedule I’d purposefully packed so densely that I hadn’t had time to sleep enough or spend any time on myself. Eventually, between taking on nearly 60 hours a week solely dedicated to working on projects, school, my job, and an internship, along with barely getting enough sleep or eating enough whole meals, my health could not take it anymore and I ended up in the emergency room with severe chest-pains and exhaustion from stress. Even while my friend was trying to take me to the hospital, I was in denial of my own (very visible) pain and told her I couldn’t go because I had class in an hour.

Since then, I’ve worked hard to balance my work and my personal life. I now prioritize sleep and my diet, and I have learned to take a step back from the work to really examine how I am doing. If I am not running at my best capacity, I cannot dedicate my best to the work. In a way, I had to teach myself that, as important the work can be, I am important too.

Have you ever faced a dilemma where you weren’t sure what the “right” course of action was? How did you handle this situation?

When this kind of dilemma arises, it is easy to feel so anxious about making a decision that you’d rather give the responsibility to someone else. When you have partners or collaborators to turn to, it’s helpful to hear their insights. Of course, it eventually may come down to your call. I find what works best for me is to really examine my options and their impacts, and then find what solutions I may have if problems arise post-decision. In other cases, what works best for me is to try and find a new solution altogether. Sometimes, the weight of a dilemma will get you so caught up and overwhelmed that you don’t notice what else is available or possible.

That usually requires me to step away momentarily from the problem and think about what I have going on beyond the context of the dilemma. What else is there to do? What else needs attention? What have I done before? What haven’t I done before? Eventually, I do have to come to a decision and resolve to deal with whatever may follow. It isn’t always easy, but it is important to remind myself that I am working towards something important, so it must be done.

A recent personal dilemma was deciding whether or not to leave New York when COVID-19 started spreading in the city. I was terrified to go to my relatives in another state in case I’d get someone sick, I was unsure if I’d be able to return home to Mongolia due to border closures, and I was concerned about being completely alone in New York right after getting laid off from my job and as lockdown was approaching. I was calling my mother, my brother, my aunt and friends every single day trying to figure out what to do. I was desperate for guidance, but was met again and again with the conclusion that I was the one who had to make the decision.

In the span of three days my plans changed from staying, to leaving via car, to flying to my relatives in Colorado. In the end, what swayed my decision was learning that there was a place I could self-isolate after arriving in CO, eliminating my concern about spreading sickness. I know many others haven’t had the same options or privileges, which makes me feel even more strongly about the importance of keeping one another safe during these times.

GCI Series: Jessica and Good Work

The Global Citizens Initiative hosts an annual Fellowship Summit to cultivate young “global citizens” to become “lifelong leaders of positive change.” In July of 2019, 28 high school students from 15 different countries gathered together for a 10-day experience in Tokyo, Japan. These students are each responsible for the design and development of a service learning project to be carried out over the course of a 10 month period. Their projects are “glocal” – addressing a global problem at a local level. In Tokyo, the students were supported by a group of Teaching Assistants, themselves all alumni of the GCI Fellowship Program. The Good Project has been in consultation with GCI since its formation, and we follow the work of its participants with interest. We recently had the opportunity to catch up with several GCI alums and ask them about their work, their thoughts about Good Work, and reflections about their experiences with GCI.

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About Jessica Bannerman Arnold

Jessica is a recent graduate from the University of Cambridge where she specialized in Politics and Social Anthropology. During this time, Jessica was on the Central Committee for a number of charities in the city, predominantly around homelessness. Currently, Jessica is studying at BPP Law School in London to gain her professional legal qualification; here, she is a part of a number of pro bono projects, mostly working in legal advice clinics. Outside of academia, Jessica is a yoga teacher, a keen long-distance runner and spends her spare time either cooking or reading.

What does it mean to do “good work” today? 

The interesting thing about this question is that it presupposes that what it means to do ‘good work’ today may be different from what it means to do ‘good work’ yesterday, or tomorrow.

Indeed, from personal experience I have found that what I understand to be ‘good work’ has changed over time. When I was introduced to the concept as defined by the Three E’s: Excellence, Ethics and Engagement, I took the intersection of these three core attributes to solely account for work with the exclusive pursuit of the greater good. In short, I was focused on what was ethical. However, today, I see ‘good work’ as being far broader. My understanding changes as my perception of the definition of each term changes, and as I witness more work undertaken by others and question whether or not it is ‘good work’, and why.

In tandem with this personal timeline also runs a collective narrative. What is ‘good work’ today may be different from yesterday and tomorrow because of the cultural moment we find ourselves in and new information that we receive. The increased data and technology that for instance has proven the existence and devastating impact of climate change means that to do ‘good work’ today is different from years gone by, as we must factor in this knowledge and act in accordance with it.

Taking together my personal conception and the collective moment, my opinion is that to do ‘good work’ today is to work with intention and integrity at every stage towards a goal. To me, the engagement, ethics and excellence need not be the goal itself, though it may be, but must be able to be seen at every point of the journey. A good example in this current moment is the Black Lives Matter movement, where there is a great deal of virtue signaling through online platforms, especially by large multinational corporations that have not backed up their statements with action. Though their statements and their goals may be seen as engaged, ethical and excellent, there needs to be more.

This has been highlighted for me as I have completed my yoga teacher training and started teaching. What I considered to be ‘good work’ as a yoga student was much easier to define: being present. In comparison, being a student and a teacher has challenged this. As a teacher I now feel that ‘good work’ in yoga is much more about connection, more about what happens off the mat, and necessitates consideration about the yogic tradition and philosophy.

I have found that this is mirrored in my legal career.  As a student, I have thought that doing ‘good work’ is about respecting the process of learning the law, to equip me to be the best and most effective lawyer I can be. Yet when stepping into the law clinic, I again find that a great deal of being a lawyer is about communication and acting with compassion and understanding beyond the black letters of the law. I expect the importance of communication  will only increase when I am in practice.

Tell us about your understanding of community.  What are the communities of which you feel a part?

I find the idea of community very interesting. On one hand, community creates opportunities for the forming of bonds and collective identities that allow us to support and uplift one another. On the other hand, community can be divisive, in that to have an identity for a group necessitates an “other “group to define in contrast.

The idea of things being ‘socially constructed’ has almost become a cliché, but to me community is socially constructed whether you consider that to be for better or worse.

In my mind, it is for better as I believe that community at its best can be a safe space for individuals to act as support networks, create change and create a feeling of purpose and something bigger than oneself. An interesting sociological take on this has been presented by Durkheim who terms this feeling “collective effervescence.” It is best to explain this with an example, the most cited of which tends to be a crowd at a football match who in singing the club anthem, feels connected and part of something greater than themselves. This is the formation of community that gives each individual purpose, connection and the ability to both support and be supported. 

In experiencing similar moments through singing a school hymn, being matriculated at my college at University, or watching the fireworks where I live for example, I have been made to feel part of my school, University and local community.

Nevertheless, it is the action that comes from these collective feelings that has truly made me feel part of communities. It seems to me that I feel most part of a community when removed from it through proximity. This means that I feel part of the GCI community when an ambassador and I connect when we happen to be in the same place, I meet someone from the same place as me in another country, or attend a class of a yoga teacher I trained with.

This perhaps shows that the unity/division dichotomy I started with may not be such a problematic divide. The fact that I feel part of my University, GCI and sports team’s community most when I am faced with people that are not in that community may show the strength of connection, as long as we are inclusive within these communities.

Is there a particular role model who has helped inspire you to do “good work”, either real or fictional? What is it about this role model that has inspired you?

Seeing my peers pursue studies at the same time as creating incredible networking groups or charities has really inspired me to do ‘good work’. I will spotlight just two of these incredible individuals.

At University, I was involved with May Week Alternative, a student run charity aiming to make giving about celebration. The initiative has gone from strength to strength thanks to the work of the astoundingly dedicated team that were balancing their Cambridge degrees at the same time. The founder himself was a student, and seeing his vision to make a sustainable change through a cultural shift has been a huge source of information.

During this time, I also met a young woman who, on commencing law school after graduation, started a networking platform for women of colour in, or aspiring to be in, the legal industry. Seeing this incredible woman found this movement with consistency, commitment and openness has been an inspiring example of ‘good work’ that I have been lucky enough to witness.

Both of these individuals have worked laboriously for the success of their groups, inspiring me to consider the longevity of each piece of ‘good work’ I set out to do, and how it fits into the wider narrative. 

Tell us about your work.  What projects are you currently involved with? How might what you are doing now relate to the work you began with GCI?

I am currently at law school having recently graduated, and I am also teaching yoga. Whilst I’m doing this, I have been involved with pro bono work with the law school that is hugely rewarding and I sit on the Ambassadors Advisory Council for GCI.

It is important to me to work with local groups in the community, so I have done work around loneliness where I currently live, and around homelessness where I went to University.

What I am doing now relates to the work I began with GCI through a focus on local solutions. It was here that I was introduced to the notion of ‘glocal’ where global issues are addressed through local solutions. On leaving the GCI Summit in 2015 and returning to the UK, I created a project to increase access to political education for children where I live on the basis of research I had done into voting patterns. This ‘glocal’ approach really drives what I do, and is a very important consideration for me when applying to international law firms to start my career.

How do you feel your current projects are connected or not to this view of “good work”? 

There’s a really interesting interview on the Good Project website by John Bliss about teaching ‘good work’ in the law that has made me think about doing ‘good work’ during my legal studies. Combining my studies with pro bono work, I feel that I have been able to connect my work with what I feel to be ‘good work,’ by working with intention. Consistently reminding myself of the Three E’s and using this to navigate the decisions I have to make helps with this, and helps me feel connected to the view of ‘good work’.

I also feel naturally connected to ‘good work’ when working with the Ambassador Advisory Council with GCI as I am surrounded by really inspiring people on the team, discussing the inspiring fellows, and work following these principles.

Yet in sharp contrast to this is my yoga teaching which I feel is a much stickier area for me. Sometimes I feel that the work I am doing is ‘good work’, but I struggle with some of the cultural hangovers of the colonial period in yoga and my role in teaching this as a white woman. It’s a difficult balance, and I have not got the answers for this, which means that I do not always feel that I am doing ‘good work’ despite my best efforts.

How and where do you find meaning in your work? 

Presenting myself with a constant reminder of intention is important for me to find meaning in my work. Reminding myself of what my intention is, and how in this moment I am doing that, helps me with this. It can be difficult when for example in my legal studies I am presented with compulsory modules that seem unconnected from my aims, however by considering what the module is trying to teach me both directly through content and indirectly through transferable skills, can help me remember why I am pursuing a legal career and find meaning in what I am doing.

Something that my yoga practice has taught me is the power of now, and value of presence. This helps me, not least by giving me an opportunity to consider things much bigger than myself.

Tell us about your biggest challenges, and how you work to tackle them.

During my GCSE years and into my A Level years, I started to have daily seizures. The cause could not be discovered despite years of testing.  This caused me to take my own steps towards a healthier outlook, both mentally and physically, that has really changed things for me. I’ve managed to increase the gap between my episodes up to a year, and feel very positive about it, but it has taken dedication, resilience and self-awareness. This year, an accident led me to consider these three things again, and how I might take them forward to work through less personal and more professional challenges.

Looking for employment currently is a good example of this category of challenge that I am currently facing as my time at law school draws to a close in a global pandemic. The dedication to continue to apply, the resilience in getting up from every rejection, and the self-awareness to realise what I have to do to improve is how I am working to overcome this challenge, and hopefully those I will face in the workplace.

Have you ever faced a dilemma where you weren’t sure what the “right” course of action was? How did you handle this situation?

I have found yoga to be a massive help to me both physically, to complement the running I enjoy, and most importantly, mentally. Because of this, I decided to become a teacher to develop my practice and share the practice with others.

What I did not expect from the teacher training was such a deep dive into the philosophy and ethics of yoga. Acknowledgement of the history from Ancient India to Colonisation has made me deeply question my part in the yogic tradition. Not paying lip service to the trauma of this time, the rich story of yoga, and yoga as a symbol of cultural identity when India was being torn apart at the hands of Colonialists, does the philosophical school of yoga such a disservice. One would not attend mass at a Church, prayers at a Mosque, Holi at a Hindu temple at the same readiness that one steps onto the yoga mat, shuffles a Spotify ‘Yoga Zen’ playlist, and puts their body into shapes, especially without noticing the flaws and cultural context of the texts. To be confronted with this reality is challenging,  and I found it hard to know if, on finishing my training, I should teach.

Having conversations with as varied a group as possible has really helped me, as well as acknowledging that the conversation is ongoing, most recently as highlighted through the BLM movement. For now, I continue to teach, attempting to acknowledge the history through my practice, by using the Sanskrit, continuing to educate myself by reading the texts, and making sure the voices I hear in the yoga community are as diverse as possible.

I’m not sure than this situation has been ‘handled’ but is very much part of a longer conversation that I am having with myself and others, trying to stay open to the idea that my opinions will be challenged and may change.

New Dilemma: The Pediatric Protector

by The Good Project Research Team

Have you ever felt torn between your professional responsibilities and your friends and family? Perhaps you are one of the 56% of American adults who find it difficult to balance work and family responsibilities. Or perhaps you’re a student who struggles to balance your responsibilities to school while also finding time to hang out with your peers--how much time do you have to spend on homework, and how much time is it okay to spend texting with friends? 

At The Good Project, we talk about this balancing act between professional and more personal responsibilities as a balance between neighborly morality and ethics of roles. Neighborly morality refers to how an individual might show kindness and respect to those in their immediate social circles; it includes behaviors such as honesty and other prosocial actions. In contrast, ethics of roles refers to the standards, norms, and regulations expected of those acting in a professional capacity (including students); one might think of the Hippocratic Oath for those in the medical field.

A new dilemma posted on our website deals with this tension between wanting to maintain one’s duty to one’s profession versus wanting to uphold one’s responsibilities to one’s neighbors. Please keep in mind that this dilemma deals with the sensitive topic of child abuse. Entitled The Pediatric Protector, it reads: 

Eliza is a retired former pediatrician who now works as a private language tutor. She often spends time bringing her grandchildren, ages eight and five, to their nearby playground. Her grandchildren recently struck up a friendship with a new six year old girl on the playground, who told them that her mother had “banged her up” at her home for playing on the stairs, so much so that she was in pain on the playground. After hearing about this from both her grandchildren, Eliza is not sure what to do. As a pediatrician, she was a mandated reporter, required to report any child abuse to the appropriate authorities. But she also knows that children can exaggerate or make mistakes; perhaps the mother was trying to keep the child safe, or she had fallen on her own. Eliza is told by a child welfare hotline that it is her decision whether to report or not. Her pediatrician friends urge her to report, and she feels obligated to as a former doctor. But Eliza worries the child could end up in a foster home where she might not be cared for.

The full dilemma can be read here. How would you describe the tension between the ethics of roles and neighborly morality Eliza is feeling? If you were in a similar situation, is there someone you would consult for advice?

On the one hand, as a former practicing pediatrician, Eliza is dealing with the requirements of her former responsibilities as a mandated reporter, an ethics of roles issue. On the other hand, Eliza cares for the children involved and is worried about their welfare should they end up in poor care, an issue of neighborly morality. What decision should she make, and what factors should she weigh in her decision making?

January Round-Up: Top 5 Articles

by Danny Mucinskas

The Good Project team wishes all of our visitors a happy and healthy start to 2021! We are hopeful that the year ahead will provide everyone with opportunities to do “good work” as the world continues to confront many challenges, from the COVID-19 pandemic to political division to climate change. With greater attention to the interconnections between us, and a commitment to collaborative and innovative problem-solving, we believe that humans can overcome these hurdles for the common good.

Below, we are sharing a few articles and resources that caught our attention this month, which we hope you also find thought-provoking and helpful.

1. Why Your Sacrifices Matter During the Pandemic: The global threat of COVID-19 has now lasted nearly a full calendar year, and many people are feeling fatigued and letting their guards down. However, Greater Good Science Center summarizes why it is important to continue to be vigilant: the disease is serious, lives depend on our behavior, and the decisions we make today have the potential to affect others. As in our rings of responsibility, by considering how our actions affect others both near and far from us, we are motivated to make more ethical choices.

2. The Hope and Fragility of Democracy in the United States: The riot at the United States Capitol on January 6 has provoked anxiety in many people about the future of democracy within America and abroad. Facing History and Ourselves responded to the moment with a teaching tool that explores the tension between democratic impulses and anti-democratic reactions in U.S. history, using the Reconstruction period as an example. This is an applicable resource that may be useful to teachers who are trying to find a way to explore recent events in their classrooms.

3. How to Talk To Your Kids about the Capitol Riots: Our HGSE colleague, Rick Weissbourd of Making Caring Common provides some advice in the Harvard Gazette about navigating conversations with children about the events at the U.S. Capitol. His tips include leveraging historical context, avoiding demonizing one side or another, reassuring safety, and using this as an opportunity to discuss structural problems like racism and the vulnerability of democracy itself.

4. A New Educational Ethics Curriculum: The Center for Ethics and Education has released a set of lesson plans focused on real-world educational issues, including the role of charter schools and how higher education is a force for social mobility, as a way to apply philosophical ideas for students. Each of the lessons is based on a podcast episode from the Center and includes specific instructions for teachers and resources for further reading.

5. Google hired Timnit Gebru to be an outspoken critic of unethical AI. Then she was fired for it.: The power and wealth of technology giants like Apple and social media companies like Facebook has exploded over the past decade, and the ethical implications of the technologies that we use every day are numerous. The Washington Post reported on the recent termination at Google of an expert on ethics and artificial intelligence, raising questions about the degree to which tech companies can be trusted to self-monitor and regulate their products to ensure no harm is done.