Critical Literacy and Good Work in Scotland

by Kelly Stone

In Scotland, our new Curriculum for Excellence is intended to enable all young people to become successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens, and effective contributors to society. Initial guidelines for Literacy and English appeared in 2008, claiming that “the important skills of critical literacy” were being foregrounded in the new curriculum.  Although critical literacy is a contested term, and definitions vary, I understand the two main elements of critical literacy to be deconstruction and reconstruction. David Wray (2006) makes this point succinctly, stating that “critical literacy is about transforming taken-for-granted social and language practices or assumptions for the good of as many people as possible.” I wholeheartedly believe in the importance of critical literacy, which creates exciting possibilities for discussing what it means to be a responsible citizen of the world, in both online and offline communities. Yet our problem in Scotland is this: as the government has issued more information to teachers, the “critical” element of critical literacy has been shifted to one side, and we now have “information and critical literacy” appearing. Issues of social justice are missing from the “official” constructions (for example, click here). But how can we have responsible citizens, participating in online and offline communities, who are not taught to think ethically and critically about the messages they encounter and to act to change what they think is unfair or unjust?

I don’t mean to suggest that critical literacy for social justice isn’t happening in Scotland. Many educators here are committed to these issues, and I was fortunate to meet some of them as part of my doctoral research. I have spent much of my time these past few years thinking about critical literacy, wondering why it has been deflated, or sidelined, in Scotland. One theory I have is that people might be afraid of the implications of a critical education which encourages and promotes challenge, critique, and action for transformation. Maybe it is lack of understanding about what “critical” really means in educational terms. I have wondered if we might be better talking about “literacy for responsible citizenship?” Is there more clarity in using that term? Is it less daunting, less intimidating? Other educational systems do not seem to have trouble using and understanding critical literacy, and changing terminology would bring Scotland out of alignment with them.

As Paulo Freire explained it, critical pedagogies enable “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it.” I am hopeful that the use of The GoodWork Toolkit here will create spaces for reflection, discussion and action. Many teachers in the United Kingdom believe that there is an urgent and widespread need for the development of digital fluency or critical literacy skills that will enable children to evaluate the information they encounter online. They have also identified the need for support in understanding how to teach critical digital skills (Bartlett and Miller, 2011). As part of my doctoral research, I interviewed teachers and librarians who similarly identified a lack of resources to help them understand how to teach critical skills.  Participants spoke of the difficulties faced by children with handling the volume of information they find online and of the need for them to know how to help children deal with it, in order to prevent them from being manipulated or taken advantage of. The fact that they identified a dearth of resources to help them teach critical, evaluative skills, particularly as they relate to digital practices, highlights the need for such resources to be disseminated more widely. This is why materials such as The GoodWork Toolkit have such potential and value for educators. I have recommended its use to practitioners (in the online safety materials or here). Further, as part of a talk I gave at a recent conference workshop on the importance of critical skills in preparing children to use the internet safely, I  informed conference delegates about GoodWork principles, and how to find the toolkit.  At that workshop, while I was speaking with a group of multi-agency professionals about how we can prepare children and young people to become responsible digital citizens, it was clear that there is a real appetite to know more about how we can help foster ethical and critical thinking skills.  I look forward to using the Toolkit to open up discussions about ethics, rights, and responsibilities, and reporting back on these experiences.  It is, I believe, one key way to do good work as teachers, and to find how we can guide and support children in doing good work when they participate in communities, online and offline.

Bartlett, J. and Miller, C. (2011) Truth, Lies and the Internet: A report into young people’s digital fluency. London: Demos.

Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury.

Wray, D. (2006) Developing critical literacy: a priority for the 21st century [online].

Good Work Conference Reflections: Getting the Measure of Success

by Amelia Peterson

A couple of years ago Clayton Christensen, guru on the principles of successful business innovation, wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review entitled, ‘How Will You Measure Your Life?’. The piece sets out the guidance Christensen gave to the HBS class of 2010 about principles for success in their personal lives.

Last year, Matthew Killingsworth, a PhD student in Daniel Gilbert’s lab at the Harvard Psychology department presented as part of his dissertation research a new method to study ‘happiness’: he asked people at the end of each day to think back over their activities and respond for each, ‘if you could ‘fast forward’ through that activity, would you?’. Killingsworth found that on average, respondents would choose not to experience over half of their day.

The continuing popularity of Christensen’s article (which soon became a book) and the interest in questions such as Killingsworth’s is a reminder of our interest as a culture in evaluating the success our lives. I was reminded of these pieces last weekend by a New York Times post from a mother fretting about her child’s high school course choices. The writer, Hope Perlman, was angst-ridden, she explained, because “[her] goal as a parent is to raise successful kids” – and she was worried about how their choices now might affect their chances of particular kinds of success down the road. For, she admitted with the ‘candor’ perfected by NYT parent bloggers, alongside the wish for her children to be “well-rounded and humane” she holds another wish: “for them to achieve: top of their classes, admission to top colleges and therefore (this is my fantasy) assured jobs and material success.”

It turns out that Perlman has a whole blog dedicated to finding the meaning of ‘success’. I came across it while waiting for my ride at the end of day two of the Project Zero/Good Work conference on the subject of ‘Developing responsible, caring and balanced youth’. If being ‘successful’ remains a powerful life goal for so many, then those of us concerned by questions of ‘balance’ and ‘responsibility’ have a task: to ensure that success is not just a zero-sum status game but one that entails caring and fulfillment. Which brings me to my initial question: what does it mean to be successful?

On the final morning of that same conference, we were offered something by way of an answer from, unsurprisingly, the articulate mind of Howard Gardner. The question we should be asking ourselves, he said, is how can we spend time well? You can find a longer development of Howard’s ideas in this Cognoscenti post, but one way of thinking about it is: what if we were all part of Killingsworth’s study and thought at the end of each day – how much of that would I have fast forwarded, and how much was really worthwhile?

So what does it look like to be doing something worthwhile? In that same conference panel we heard veteran educator Ron Berger describe his 28 years creating beautiful work with his students. I expect ‘elementary school teacher’ is not quite the career Hope Perlman has in mind for her children. However, I believe that if she had heard Ron on that morning she would not have been worried about the low status or pay of the position. His enthusiasm for his work is compelling. Here, quite clearly, is a man who is able to spend his time as he chooses.

Quite universally I think, we value the power of this kind of autonomy. It is therefore bizarre the extent to which we have allowed it to fall away as a criterion of success. Our societal vision of success is one where the figure of your annual salary (or rather, your bonus) has become the arbiter of value, as opposed to what kind of quality of life you manage to achieve in your waking hours.

Think how different it would be if we brought to the centre of our idea of success, how we spend our time. The outlook does not invite past blanket statements about what kinds of activities or careers are, and are not, worth pursuing. Spreadsheets, coding, or endless meetings might be absolutely how some people would choose to spend their time, particularly if the activities form part of a larger sense of what they are doing with their lives and why. Yet for others, a lens that valued well-spent time might emphasize that they are far from successful by this account, and perhaps the only attraction of their field is the lingering sense of status attached to their hard won position. Making spent time our arbiter of value could also help us acknowledge the inequity at the lower end of the pay scale – if we valued human time more highly, we would have the proper response to the situation of those forced to work more than eight hours a day to acquire a liveable wage.

What this lens prioritizes is an experiential as opposed to goal-orientated way of looking at value, meaning and purpose. Both lenses are of course important – the value of a particular experience of spent time can vary depending on associated goals – but a focus on goals alone can lead to a skewed picture of how to live ones life. A picture that is liable to reduce the importance of attending to minor day-to-day matters that are not attached to a goal, such as the quality of interpersonal interactions. Overall, therefore, the time spent lens can help us to raise to its proper place something that is vital if we intend to be and develop more caring and responsible people: due attention to how we treat others. This focus simply does not fit well with a life orientated towards traditional conceptions of success, where achievement of goals trumps any time-bound or experiential concern. If someone is trying to achieve time-well-spent, however, then time spent engaging with others – or even just passing through a respectful interaction – never feels wasted, because human connection is simply the thing none of us can get enough of.

So along with what Christensen and Killingworth would say to Hope Perlman about how to help her children life a good life, we might add the words of Samuel Johnson: “The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”

Good Work Conference Reflections: On “Embracing the Messy Path to Purpose”

by Alexis Redding

The first GoodWork Conference was last weekend in Dedham, Massachusetts. The conference focused on developing responsible, caring and balanced youth and included inspiring speakers including Howard Gardner, Bill Damon, Eric Liu, Damien Woetzel and more. Panels at the conference featured discussions of growing up in the digital age, the arts and good work, engaging youth in empathy and a discussion led by Howard Gardner with adult good workers. In the coming weeks, we will post a series of reflections by PZers and our colleagues on the conference, highlighting key moments and takeaways from the exciting 3 day event.

As a child, I relied on the oft-used ploy to delay lights out by demanding “just one more story” at bedtime.  My father, no stranger to my antics, would stand at the doorway and convey the final tale of the night: “Once upon a time, they lived happily ever after, the end” before plunging the room into darkness with the flip of a switch.  The first time he did this, I protested.  He was cheating, I said.  It wasn’t a real story, I argued.  But, over time, I embraced this 11-word tale as part of our evening ritual.

I hadn’t thought about his abridged story for nearly three decades, but was reminded of it over the weekend during the “Developing Responsible, Caring, & Balanced Youth” Conference in Dedham, MA.  In the morning on our final day together, Dr. William Damon described to the audience how “finding a sense of purpose doesn’t always work in a neat and pretty way.”  He warned of our over-simplified ideas about finding one’s calling and cautioned us about the “egocentrism in our dreams for our children.”  After spending more than a dozen years working with college-bound students, his admonitions rang true.  Allowing teens the space to listen to their own voices, to formulate ideas about the future that may look quite different from what their parents expected of them, and giving them room to fail is only a small part of the dialogue today.  Too small.

Listening to Dr. Damon’s description, I recognized that the little joke my father used to tell me is a very real part of the narrative we continue to tell teens today. We lead them to believe that life offers a direct path towards purpose, suggesting that jumping through each hoop along the way will lead to a “happily ever after” that may not actually be waiting at the end. What we fail to tell them is that the middle part of the story, the meaty bit where all of the richness of real life takes place, isn’t a straight line. And we forget to share with them the truth that life will be filled with many endings, some happier than others, followed by new beginnings and new dreams along the way.  And, worst of all, we neglect to point out that the obstacles that we climb over, tunnel under, and maybe even succumb to are what make the story interesting.  Indeed, it is in these details that we are most likely to find our true purpose.  Life should not be about the perceived “happily ever after” of getting into the right college, securing the dream job, or building the perfect home.  Though, for many adults – and for too many teens – we intone that it is.

To meet the conference goal of “Developing Responsible, Caring, & Balanced Youth,” we need to foster these traits in ourselves first.  And, above all else, we need to be truthful.  We need to show teens the people we revere as role models are almost always those who fell down or got lost along the way.  These are the risk-takers and dreamers of our contemporary mythology – our Horatio Algers and American dreamers of the modern world.

All weekend long we listened to such visionaries speak about the circuitous paths that they took and we felt inspired by them. Teens also need to be let in on the secret that getting off the beaten path can lead in the right direction and that failure is an integral part of success. As educators, we talk passionately about developing ‘grit’ in kids today.  However, without preparing them for the fact that life doesn’t always look like we expect it to in the end, we are not giving them the real tools to develop this kind of resiliency.

After this weekend, I propose a new version of my father’s story for the next generation: “Once upon a time, life got messy. But, then I made meaning… and it was mostly happy in the end.”  My dad didn’t include that middle bit in his nighttime tale, but he did include it in the decades of lessons he has taught me since then. These are the messages he has given me as I have fallen down, dusted myself off, and ultimately found the renewed sense of purpose that led me to this inspiring weekend conference.

Good Work in School Counseling

by Mark Veronica

​The original Good Work study examined the relationship between top quality performance and ethical responsibility by interviewing professionals in various fields to assess the current status of their profession and to speculate about its future (Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi, & Damon, 2001). My dissertation study followed the Good Work model, continuing the extension of Good Work analyses into other fields by focusing on professional school counselors. Ten in-depth interviews were conducted with practicing high school counselors. Qualitative analysis revealed three overarching themes: Obstacles to Alignment, Concern for the Future, and Implications for Counselor Education.

Within each category are two central recurring themes. The “obstacles to alignment” category includes themes of the persistent struggle with role definition among stakeholders, and unrelated duties that obstruct effectiveness. The “concern for the future” category includes two main themes: budget cuts that threaten positions, and the danger of rising caseloads. The national average caseload for a school counselor is perilously high, at 459 students – almost double the maximum recommended caseload and four to five times the ideal ratio. Perennial threats to school budget cuts cause concerns that these numbers may rise, reducing a school counselor’s ability to work effectively. The “implications for counselor education” category includes two themes: calls for more practical training, and calls for more instructors with experience in the field. Participants felt that their graduate training overemphasized theoretical background at the expense of practical training, and saw the need to have more courses taught by practicing school counselors instead of professors who lack recent experience in the K-12 school environment.

Alignment

While the original Good Work study found journalism to be a field that is presently not well-aligned, it also revealed hope for alignment within the domain as evidenced by the consensus among 92% of the respondents who separately and spontaneously mentioned the importance in their work of adherence to professional standards such as truthfulness and fairness. Their focus on common core values of the profession is essential to maintaining their common sense of direction and restoring alignment. Similarly, my study found the field of professional school counseling to be not well aligned at present but also revealed signs of hope for future realignment.

Professional alignment is analogous to the way a well-aligned car has all wheels working together smoothly, in conjunction, to all pull in the same direction at the same time to maximize efficiency. A car in need of alignment may still work, but it does not function nearly as effectively as it could.

Good Work in School Counseling

My qualitative investigation of professional school counselors began immediately after the release of the results of the largest quantitative survey of school counselors ever conducted, which revealed several significant, widespread concerns regarding school counselors’ professional identity. The survey of over 5300 practicing school counselors identified such disparity within the field that the report is subtitled “Counseling at a Crossroads.” A counselor educator mentioned that the field lacks identity, and a prior survey of college students rated the high school guidance system as inadequate. The school counselor’s role is perceived differently by administrators, teachers, parents, students, and even counselors themselves at various levels (elementary, middle, and high school) and in different settings (public and private schools). The pervasive lack of role definition often results in counselors trying to be all things to all people, an insurmountable task that invariably leaves them falling short.

My interview participants echoed this sense of misalignment. Their overriding sentiment is that few stakeholders have a clear picture of the actual role of the school counselor. Three participants offered concise but direct answers. One referred to “a disconnect in what they think I do, what I really do, and what they’d like me to do.” Another was more blunt: “I don’t think they know what our role is…I don’t think they really have a clue.” One stated, “I think it is a basic lack of understanding of what it is we do.” Others suggested that various stakeholders each see one piece of the puzzle, but none sees the complete picture of the school counselor’s role.

Upon closer examination, other participants pointed out that beneath this apparent lack of alignment on the surface, there is some fundamental underlying harmony. “They are aligned in the sense that they will all say I want what’s best for the kid. But then everybody’s opinion is different on how you get what is best for the kid…There is a commonality but there is a difference of opinion of what is best for the kid, know what I mean. And we are the peacemakers, we are the mediators, the diplomatic person in that picture and we are supposed to make that all smooth and work, where everybody is coming at a different angle.”

Similarly, one respondent referred to alignment in the sense of having a common objective:

“We service each of those groups differently, for the same common goal, but each one has a different view on things…I think the expectations are similar, they just have different outlooks; their perspectives are a little bit different for each person. The goal is to have the kid graduate and be successful. I think everyone would have just a slightly different bend towards that.” Just as the key for journalists to restore alignment is to focus on their core principles, school counselors can improve alignment by continuing to focus on the best interests of their students.

The Cornfield Effect

To make an analogy that combines the imagery of a professional field’s stakeholders’ common roots but varying perspectives of alignment, the concept of the Cornfield Effect is introduced. Upon first glance, something that initially appears disordered, arbitrary, or chaotic may suddenly appear to make more sense when viewed from a slightly different perspective. When one drives past farms, the crops first seem to be scattered randomly across the field – until the moment when your angle of vision suddenly allows you to see that the plants are actually systematically arranged in precise patterns of parallel rows. The phenomenon of gaining a clearer understanding of something by looking at it from a slightly different perspective can be called The Cornfield Effect. [see images below]

In Good Work terms, a professional field may initially appear to be uncoordinated, but closer inspection reveals it does have some alignment if stakeholders share common roots. A profession’s stakeholders often have a partial view of the field, where it overlaps their vested interests. They may make conclusions about that profession based on extrapolating from their limited familiarity, but getting the most complete, accurate picture requires an analysis of the insider’s viewpoint. Good Work studies of various professions provide illumination deep within each field to discern the influences that steer its future direction.  In any field, strong roots are essential to produce the fruits of workers’ labor. In both journalism and school counseling, closer inspection reveals that a field lacking alignment on the surface does share some common ground among stakeholders.

Beyond Good Work, the term Cornfield Effect can be used to describe that moment of clarity when an unclear or abstract concept suddenly makes sense. I have experienced the Cornfield Effect in math class, when a slightly different explanation causes me to say, “Oh, now I get it!” and more recently in a multicultural counseling course when I reacted, “Huh, I never thought of it that way before.”

The full text of this dissertation study is available online at http://gradworks.umi.com/35/41/3541167.html

Young Children Exploring the 3 Es (Three Part Series): Part One – What’s happening in the classroom?

by Jo Hoffman

Since June of 2011, my daughter Amy and I have been working with the GoodWork Toolkit team to adapt some of the Toolkit activities so that they would be appropriate for children who are six to eight years old—the ages of the students in my daughter Amy’s 1st and 2nd grade multiage class.  Encouraged by Lynn, Wendy, and Margot and collaborating with me, Amy wrote curriculum activities for each of the 3 Es.  She is in her second year of incorporating Toolkit activities into her unit on citizenship in the community, and through writing units that focused on narratives and self-expression.  Together we are looking for evidence of development in the children’s thinking about the concepts of the 3 Es.  Amy has collected work samples, photos, and audio recordings from her young learners that are the result of many, many concrete experiences exploring the concepts of the 3 Es.

Amy has begun each school year with conversations about GoodWork. (Amy and her students describe activities involving the 3Es as GoodWork time.)  She embarked on exploration of each of the 3Es with essential questions and discussion designed to introduce her students to the concepts surrounding the “E” to be explored.  To gauge children’s initial understandings and as a pre-assessment, a word list is created via class discussion/brainstorming of all the meanings they have for the “E” being investigated.  Amy offers an age-appropriate definition for them and then encourages the class to develop their own definitions too over the course of the days of related experiences.  As an example, the definition she uses to introduce ethics is:  Ethics is what you believe makes you a good friend, brother or sister, or classmate.  Ethics is being with others and respecting whoever you’re with so that everyone is working together in a happy way to get things done.  One of her students developed this definition for ethics after several days of related activities:  “Ethics is having confidence in yourself to make smart choices.”  Other activities within the 3 or 4 days of initial focus on each of the Es included narratives and student responses, word mapping, webquests and the value sort activity using technology, and other developmentally appropriate related activities.  For instance, an activity to explore Engagement is for children to reflect on the things that they like to do and think they are good at doing, developing trading cards with pictures and writing about their “expertise.” Then working with a partner, they trade cards and think of ways that they can help one another in their class community using something they are good at doing.

Amy has been doing a great job documenting the activities and discussions surrounding the 3Es.  It is fascinating to listen to audio recordings of the students in their class discussions about GoodWork and in looking at the photos that Amy has taken of their word maps and word sorts.   Her 1st and 2nd graders’ responses and participation vary, as even young learners bring a variety of prior experiences and understandings to the ‘table’.  Listening in on a class discussion, we hear students’ initial perceptions of What is GoodWork?  For example, GoodWork is: “getting better at something, trying new things,” trying and trying and not giving up.”  In a class conversation about Engagement, we hear some insightful early thoughts from her students to the prompt – It’s important to like what you’re learning about because:  “it helps you get better at stuff,”” it makes it fun,” “it makes you try harder”.  The discussion deepens their understandings as they interact with one another and compare their ideas.  Amy guides them to expand their beginning understandings by partnering them to tackle an online word mapping activity, adding higher level and more descriptive vocabulary.

After this September and October’s GoodWork activities, the students came up with the initial idea to do something “good” for someone or some group.  Through class discussions and ideas about what to do and for whom, it was decided to do a school-wide read-a-thon to raise money for a yet-to-be determined school in Nepal working with an organization that could help deliver school supplies.  Not long after, Superstorm Sandy hit NJ and when they finally had school again 10 days later, Amy and her students decided that due to widespread damage and devastation, there would be people and schools needing money for supplies right in their own state. Since Amy is always seeking ideas to keep the GoodWork conversation alive throughout the school year, she’ll be using short video clips that resonate with the 3Es for her students to respond to after the holidays.  The spring brings the final activity where students write their own GoodWork narratives.  Last year’s work samples were intriguing.  Here’s an example that two students wrote together:

Bob and Mary are building a wind farm.  James could not build a wind farm by himself, but he wanted to.  He said, I cannot do this.  Upon hearing James’s frustration, a girl names Starr told him they could make a wind farm together!  So, they got some stuff to make it and then they made even more.  They still put on long wires, next they put on the long tube, they also put blades and then it looked awesome and they were happy.  Then they decided they would make even more windmills so they got to work and did the same thing.  Finally, they connected the bird baths to the windmills and the water went from one side to another!

The examples of students’ words and work I’ve included here are part of the growing body of evidence that there has been development in the children’s thinking and understanding of excellence, ethics, and engagement.  They seem to be discovering the variety of meanings that the concepts of the Toolkit embrace. There are still more questions to answer, such as what additional activities could be planned for expanding their learning?  Mid-way through year two of young children exploring the 3Es, we will continue to examine the student work samples for more outcomes and indicators — evidence that investigating the concepts of the Toolkit has had a positive effect.  I look forward to sharing our findings – more to come!