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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.