Narrative Three: An Ethical Dilemma

by Marian Brown

Today’s discussion focused the class’s attention on a debate about “Silence Isn’t Always Golden,” a narrative from the GW Toolkit. To give a little background, Emma is a recent high school graduate who is deciding between attending two prestigious Ivy League schools. It is clear that she is a hard worker, and has a strict ethical code when it comes to her scientific work. However, Emma’s code of conduct is much less clear when it comes to her relationships with her friends.  With Emma’s knowledge, her friends have hacked into the school’s computer system. Not only does she look the other way, but when confronted by a teacher about her friend’s poor choices, Emma lies and says that she knows nothing about the parties responsible for this breach of security.

The dilemma is heightened for Emma because she has conflicting standards between her code of ethics at the lab, and her ethics in dealing with her friends. She clearly wants to keep her friends out of trouble – does this make her unethical?

After reading Emma’s case the students at Arlington got into a contentious, but healthy, debate over how they would have handled a similar situation. Cheryl started the discussion by asking students if it was Emma’s responsibility to keep her classmates from hacking into the computer system. Alexa responded by saying, “It’s generally something you don’t want to encourage”. Sara responded with empathy towards Emma, saying, “She is over-committed. She gives what she can but she can’t possibly do it all”. Then Molly contextualized Emma’s dilemma in relationship to her own, “This is a more extreme example of what most of us high schoolers face, we all have lots of commitments we are trying to balance between. It’s really hard to find that balance, but if you don’t pick one or the other than you just end up giving half an effort to both.”

Molly’s comment was a turning point in the discussion as the focus was now on the pressures that the students in the class experience in their everyday lives. These pressures were explicitly linked to expectations of “fulfilling one’s potential”.  As the students describe it, these expectations are imposed upon them by teachers, parents, and friends. At this point, the discussion ball was rolling, and at a fast pace as students shared and commiserated with one another about the pressures of growing up in this current generation and specifically, at Arlington HS. They have recently been experiencing vandalism at the school: students have been punching holes in the walls, causing substantial damage to the school’s property. Cheryl believed that certain students in the class have friends or acquaintances that were involved in these acts of vandalism, so she turned the attention to focus on that dilemma. Cheryl made sure not to ask the kids to disclose information towards this incident, but she did ask the students to question their place in this learning community. Who are they accountable to? Who makes the rules that govern this community? What happens when someone goes against those norms, and when is it our responsibility to make those instances visible?

Obviously, there are no easy or clear answers to these questions. However, what was so special about today’s discussion is that every student was engaged and weighed in with an opinion, and everyone’s perspective was valued. Cheryl left the students with a final question to ponder, “Is there a time limit on honesty?”

As the students walked out the door to their various next classes, it was clear that they were still considering their roles in protecting and serving the community here at Arlington. Sometimes the best thing an educator can do for his or her students is to create a safe space to discuss the difficult topics that arise in their lives. Today, Cheryl took a very difficult dilemma, made it immediately relevant, and handled the discussion with poise and inquisition. I can’t wait to see how the conversation will continue to unfold next week.

Value Sort Continued

by Marian Brown

At the end of the last class, and our last blog narrative, the students were departing Cheryl’s room with an assignment in hand. Their homework for the week was to take the value sort and ask an adult they admired to fill it out, the exact same exercise they had been asked to do in class. The students were already buzzing with excitement and were discussing the value sort when the period began.

Prior to this week’s session the students had completed the assignment and put it in Cheryl’s box so that she could compile the answers for comparison across the students and their interviewees. Before sharing the results of the two value sorts, Cheryl asked the students which values they believed they chose most frequently. One student, Sarah, commented, “I believe that the values of honesty and integrity will be at the top as they are values that we discuss often at Arlington.” Another student, Liza, gave a varying view, “I think fame and money will be ranked highly amongst us because as young adults the only person we are really responsible for is ourselves, and so it’s ok for us to be more selfish.” A third student, Steve, shared another perspective, “I believe that hard work is important to all of us and will be reflected in our answers.”

Chatter broke out amongst the students as Cheryl displayed the overhead of tally marks illustrating the students’ most highly picked values. The values picked as the most important were honesty, rewarding and supportive relationships, independence and quality. The least important were fame, success, spirituality, wealth and material well-being. Cheryl asked the students how these values related to their good work. Ann, a generally reserved student spoke up, “All of these values affect how we approach our work. If we didn’t value these things then we wouldn’t be doing as high quality of work. A lot of how we came to understand these values comes from our mentors.”

Cheryl built on Ann’s comment about mentors by asking the students who they valued as mentors. Students echoed the importance of parents, grandparents, teachers, siblings, and coaches. Not surprisingly, these were many of the people the students shared the value sort with. Cheryl then displayed the values most frequently picked by the mentors interviewed. The top three values picked were honesty, integrity, and quality. The students were surprised to see so much overlap there was between their mentors and their own answers. Cheryl looked at Ann, and gave her a knowing smirk as Ann’s comment had some validity; there was a strong correlation between mentor and student values in this sampling. The correlation between mentor and student values, as seen in this classroom, points to the idea that our values are indeed influenced and decided by those we admire and look up to. This beckons the question of how important affective mentorship is in one’s development and in one’s understanding of values. How can we as educators create and sustain healthy mentorships where positive values can be instilled?

Teaching Note: Creating Safe Environments:

Cheryl always supports the students in sharing their opinions and refrains from passing judgment on their answers. She simply acknowledges their comments, creating an environment of acceptance and safety. This building of environment is key while discussing difficult and personal issues as and opinions as things like the value sort do. It allows for all opinions to be heard.

Compromised Work

by Conor McCauley

Earlier this fall, my professor, Dr. Joan Miller, assigned my class a brief reflective essay to write about one of the readings we had covered in our seminar values course, “Good Work: A Focus on Excellence, Ethics, Engagement and the Development of Five Minds for the Future.”  I chose to reflect on Dr. Howard Gardner’s 2005 article entitled “Compromised Work,” because I felt it readily applied to my area of study and I have always felt that examples of what not to do can be just as powerful as guidance toward desired behavior (in this case, GoodWork).  We were asked to think critically about the reading we selected, apply it to ourselves and address issues it raised for us as learners and developing professionals.  My thoughts are as follows.

Howard Gardner’s 2005 article “Compromised Work” raises many issues pertinent to the business domain (and management in particular) through its illumination of behavior that is contrary to the concept of good work.  The article begins with an explanation of the idea of compromised work; that is, work that is “not necessarily illegal but that compromises the ethical integrity of its domain or profession.”  Gardner explains that it is important to examine cases of compromised work if only to learn from the consequences of misalignment and a lack of mentors in different professional environments.

All three cases of compromised work Gardner details resulted in serious or destructive consequences.  However, the management of the three institutions involved (The New York Times, Hill and Barlow, and Enron) was partially or completely to blame for the compromised work that took place within each.  In each case, management either failed to act ethically, did not respond appropriately to environmental or market factors, or was directly responsible for the compromised work through their tolerance or their creation of a culture in which it was expected.  Instead of acting as mentors for their employees, they feigned alignment in their organizations when there was none.  It is absolutely imperative that I, as a future manager, take the lessons of these cases to heart.  In essence, I must set the pursuit of good work above all else, despite what pressures I may come to face, or I will suffer dire consequences.

Too often managers in all fields of business succumb to real or perceived pressures and compromise the work of their institutions to achieve certain bottom-line goals, whether they are financial or otherwise.  I have seen this first hand in even my most recent place of employment, a prestigious hotel.  Multiple managers there let blatant (albeit minor) violations of departmental standards slide for no other reason than to maintain the status quo and the current culture of “good enough.”  They cited “bigger fish to fry” as their reason for ignoring these issues, such as unsatisfactory employee appearance or abuse of the break system, as long as no serious problems resulted from them.  Although their intentions may not have been malicious or apathetic, quality and honesty standards suffered as a result of management only addressing problems they deemed as truly important to the hotel (or in other words, those problems that directly impeded guest service and interaction).

These compromised standards applied most often to the line employees in my department, for whose supervision I was responsible. Managerial tolerance of compromised work fostered the idea among many employees that just showing up and doing what was required was sufficient work.  An intrinsic desire to excel and pursue good work was rare, as most individuals were concerned simply with performing their duties only as well as they needed to.  Compromised work from management also allowed other employees to get away with compromised, and often low-quality, work themselves. They were allowed to remain at the hotel as long as they did not cause any serious problems with guests or coworkers largely because management wanted to avoid the hassle of trying to remove them.  Although I could step in at times and make my case for different parties to take a better approach to their work or their attitudes, my level of authority did not allow me to circumvent the actions and decisions (or in this case, inaction and indecision) of senior management.  The line employees I supervised would only listen to my suggestions if they genuinely wanted to or if it made sense to them.  As in most cases, the decision to actively pursue good work remained with the individual. Gardner acknowledged that isolated cases of compromised work are unavoidable, and the business environment at the hotel was no exception.  To let these repeated violations go unattended, however, is to create a culture where compromised work becomes the norm.

Professional development means that I must develop to be a professional, that I must pursue my career to the absolute best of my ability and ensure my work is excellent, engaging, and ethical.  Maintaining the integrity of my domain means that I must pass the mirror tests each day, and if preventing compromised work entails even simple, unpleasant tasks like more rigid enforcement of standards, that is what I must do.  Two of the most important aspects of management involve being an effective leader and learning to adapt without damaging the integrity or stability of the institution.  GoodWork in the business domain, by definition, would require me to do both as well.

Good Work and the Global Financial Crises

by Susanna Katsman

Susanna took Howard Gardner’s course “GoodWork in Education: When Excellence, Engagement, and Ethics Meet during the Fall 2011 semester. This memo was in response to the generative question: What opportunities and challenges does globalization have on the three “E’s” of good work?

Similar to earlier significant advances in sharing information, such as written language and printed press, globalization holds potential for humanity to take a leap forward.  However, the speed of globalization and its wide reach present some challenges. Each of the three “E’s” of good work – excellence, engagement and ethics – are affected by globalization.

Globalization aids the pursuit of excellence by providing ample instantaneous means of sharing expertise, experiences, and instructions.  Professional standards for excellence are easily disseminated the world over.  At the same time, increased competition motivates some companies to saturate the market with inferior quality products and services, resulting in limited access to superior products and services. In extreme cases, the consumers are scammed into purchasing products and services of compromised quality.

Globalization greatly supports engagement by providing unprecedented opportunities for collaboration.  Today, it is easier than ever to connect with others in the field, participate in professional associations and access a wealth of information on topics of interest.  However, the increasing amount of communication that takes place remotely can be de-motivating to those who thrive on personal interactions with colleagues and customers.  One needs a unique set of skills and competencies in order to succeed in the rapidly expanding and fluid environment.  In Globalization: Culture and education in the new millennium M. Suarez – Orozco and D.B. Qin – Hilliard state: “The skills needed for analyzing and mobilizing to solve problems from multiple perspectives will require individuals who are cognitively flexible, culturally sophisticated, and able to work collaboratively in groups made up of diverse individuals”.  In the same article, Howard Gardner further illustrates: “Trends in our increasingly globalized society have brought interdisciplinary concerns to the fore.  Issues like poverty reduction, anti-terrorism, privacy, prevention of disease, energy conservation, ecological balance – and the list could be expanded at will – all require input from and syntheses of various forms of disciplinary knowledge and methods.”  It seems to me that the number of persons achieving this level of cognitive function and interpersonal savvy will be quite limited; first by access to education that can prepare for those new ways of problem defining and solving, and second by nature, in that few possess an aptitude for thinking and operating in such evolved ways.  Many of those called upon to exercise these sophisticated skills will be unable or unprepared to do so.  Consequently, they will be ineffective and their engagement, along with engagement of those working alongside of them, will diminish.

Globalization poses extraordinary challenges in the area of ethics.  Even coming from different cultures, it is relatively easy to arrive at a common understanding of what constitutes excellence in a particular field.  While what makes work meaningful differs greatly from person to person, engagement with one’s profession is unmistakable in feeling and universally recognizable in external manifestation.  What makes work socially (globally?) responsible is much harder to bridge in a multi-cultural setting.  In the words of  M. Suarez – Orozco and D.B. Qin – Hilliard in Globalization: Culture and education in the new millennium “While many observers see globalization as positive, promoting economic developments and intercultural exchanges, there are also corrosive developments, such as globalization’s threat to century-long traditions, religious identities, authority structures, values and worldviews.” Earlier in the semester, our class discussed behavior that the American educational system defines as plagiarism and cheating, and how certain other cultures consider the same behavior collaboration.  Views on what constitutes acceptable conduct, respectful communication, appropriate recognition and fair disciplinary process are just as disparate in a global setting.  Different interpretations of freedom of choice, equality and justice add layers of complexity to an already complex nature of ethics at work.  The concept of cultural sensitivity is taken to a whole new level in global context.  Globalization presently poses much greater challenges than opportunities for ethics than it does for excellence and engagement.

Excellence, engagement and especially ethics have been shaped by countless opportunities and challenges over the course of many centuries.  Globalization rapidly increases the pace of workplace change and influences the nature of the opportunities and challenges. The transformation of the three “E’s” in the coming decades is certain to be fascinating

A Case of Bad Work

by Howard Gardner

Background: For fifteen years, my colleagues and I have studied GoodWork— work that is excellent, engaging, and carried out in an ethical, responsible way (see goodworkproject.org and goodworktoolkit.org). From time to time, I have written about Compromised Work—work that, while not strictly illegal, is carried out in an irresponsible, unethical way.

Recently, I’ve been the victim of fraud—an example that goes beyond Compromised Work and is best described as a scam, a swindle, a prototypical example of Bad Work. In what follows I report the facts of the matter, as best I have been able to ascertain them, and then draw a few conclusions. By doing so, I hope to spark discussions of how best to reduce the incidence of blatantly Bad Work.

The Case: On October 31st 2010, I received an email from a person in Mexico City, expressing regret that my plane had been cancelled and that, therefore, I had been unable, at the last moment, to attend a conference at which I was the featured speaker. Though my memory is far from perfect, this note did not ring any bells. Consulting my records, I confirmed that indeed I had not accepted any invitation to any conference at that time. Further correspondence with my informant indicated that a Dr. Dzib had said that my plane was cancelled and had then read aloud an entire paper that purported to be from me. I was angered to learn of this “whole cloth deception” but did not think that there was much if anything that I could do.

Then, at the beginning of December, I received in the mail a book length publication from Mexico, entitled APRENDIZAJES Y DESARROLLO EN CONTEXTOS EDUCATIVOS, compiled by Joaquín Hernández González, Gilda Rocha Romero, José Pérez Torres, Nicolás Tlalpachícatl Cruz, and María Imelda González Mecalco, dated October 2010, and published by Universidad Pedagógica Nacional—complete with the customary notice “all rights to reproduce prohibited.” The lead essay in the book contains my “Conferencia Magistral”. There is no copyright on the essay; but there is an acknowledgement of thanks to Dr. Alma Dzib and a reference to Dr. Dzib Goodin. The essay is mostly my words, though there is inserted material devoted explicitly to the conference. With the mailed book came an unsigned piece of paper from the Rector, expressing regret at the cancellation of my flight. According to the publication, the Rector is Sylvia Ortega Salazar. That piece of paper is reproduced directly here.

Thanks to sleuth work by Kirsten Adam, Yael Karakowsky, and Charles Lang, I’ve been able to ascertain the following additional bits of information. This conference was advertised for several weeks on the Internet. The organizer at the conference (presumably Dr. Dzib) reported that I had sent the presentation the day before, thinking ahead of the worst case scenario—a cancelled flight. She went on to read the paper as if I had written it in the first person. She apologized that she could not add the remarks about American education that I might have included. She indicated that she is at the Harvard Medical School, that she and I are friends (I have never met her, to my knowledge, and she is certainly not a friend or colleague), and that she and I are both members of Mensa International (an organization that I know nothing about and certainly don’t belong to). And she includes a reference to my parents’ departure from Nazi Germany which is completely wrong and gratuitously hurtful. In other words, one complete falsehood after another.

For further information, see http://www.upn.mx/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=865:howard-gardner-en-la-upn&catid=50:actividades-academicas and http://www.webmii.es/Result.aspx/Alma/Dzib http://www.upn.mx/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=865&Itemid=610

Implications:

This episode is an unambiguous instance of bad work. As far as I am able to ascertain, there was nothing that I ever did or said that indicated or implied that I would attend such an event or prepare a paper for a volume—particularly a volume that had clearly been planned ad prepared well before the Conference took place. Nor do I ever give permission to reproduce my work without retaining the copyright. Any statement or implication that I had anything to do with this event has no basis in fact.

The episode raises a number of questions:

l. What was the motivation for the fraud? We have no direct information on this. I suspect that a person or persons wanted to have a conference and used my name and interests as a pretext for setting up the conference, securing an audience, and issuing a publication that purportedly grew out of the conference.

2. Who was involved in the fraud? It is completely unclear whether the fraud was the creation of one or a small group of persons, or a much larger undertaking, involving many people, including the editors, the Universidad Pedaogica Nacional, and/or other parties.

3. Who are the victims of the fraud? Clearly, those who attended the conference, expecting to hear me speak, were deceived. They may well have invested time and money to come to the Conference and they are owed an apology by the organizers, if not reimbursement for any expenses that they incurred. Also, any readers of the book who believe that I spoke there and prepared a paper for the conference were also victims. Since I was misrepresented, I (and my reputation) are victims as well. So are those who believe in honoring international copyright regulations.

4. Why bring attention to this shameful event? This is not the first time that my name has been exploited, and I have also been the victim of other frauds and swindles. In general, rightly or wrongly, I have kept quiet about these events. In cases where I know the deceivers personally, I have registered protests which may or may not have had any impact.

In this case, however, the fraud is of such a scale, and so blatant, with so many victims, that it seems wrong simply to be silent about it. Indeed, when people remain silent about circumstances where they have been deceived, they often, if inadvertently, encourage the deceiver to initiate yet another deception, perhaps even one on a broader scale. By bringing attention to this event, I hope both to embarrass the perpetrators of the fraud and to reduce the chances that they can repeat the deception again, on other unwitting victims.

As pointed out by Katie Davis, this fraud underscores the powers of the internet. The internet makes it possible to advertise the conference and circulate the proceedings to a very wide audience. But the Internet also makes it possible to track down the perpetrators of a fraud and at least call attention to their misdeeds.

The case raises the broader question of how to deal with instances of compromised work, or of blatantly bad work. I’ve given my own views, and I’d be very pleased to hear views from others.

There is one other moral to this episode.. If you learn that I am coming to a conference, or that I have failed to show up at a conference, it is best if you confirm that report. The same thing ought to apply when you consider attending any event of whose existence you are uncertain.

The health of a society depends upon trust. When trust is diminished or absent, life becomes difficult. Alas, the executors of this bad work have torn apart the fabric of scholarly trust, and for that they deserve condemnation.