Purpose and “Good Work” in Brazil: An Interview with Ulisses Araujo and Valeria Arantes

University of São Paulo, Brazil

Over the past decade, our colleagues Ulisses Araujo and Valeria Arantes, professors at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, have been researching the meaning of “purpose” in Brazil. This year, Ulisses and Valeria are visiting scholars at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, further exploring how their work intersects with The Good Project’s theories of “good work” and professionalism.

We spoke with Ulisses and Valeria about the latest developments in their research, their forthcoming book on educator practices, and their continued commitment to helping students and educators discover and explore their purpose.

Below, we have released an edited Q&A based on our conversation.

Q: Please take a moment to introduce and provide an overview of your work.

Ulisses: I am a full Professor at the University of São Paulo. I work at the Schools of Education, and of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities. I think of myself as a pedagogue. I am also President of the Association of Problem-Based Learning and Active Learning Methodologies.

Valeria: I am an Associate Professor at the School of Education at the University of São Paulo. I work more with the role of emotion in purpose, and my students and I investigate the way people relate their purpose to their goals, obstacles, and feelings. We are trying to understand reason, but also how people feel about their purpose.

Ulisses: In the past, we have twice worked in residence at the University of Barcelona in Spain. In 2008, we were in residence at Stanford, where we worked with Bill Damon and Anne Colby on the topic of purpose. We began doing some research in Brazil related to purpose, using previously created instruments on purpose but adapting them to the Brazilian social context, and interviewing over 2000 people across 12 years. We found that participants’ ideas of their “purpose” fell into six categories:

• fragile (lack of concrete direction);

• idealized (aspirational but unrealistic, with no path to achievement);

• family-oriented (connecting ambitions to family outcomes, e.g., “I’m going to become a businessperson to earn money to help my family”);

• work-oriented (focused on professional goals);

• desire for economic stability (focused on money/resources); and

• altruist (selfless acts of help for others).

Q: Tell us about the book you have recently written.

Ulisses: Our book Life Project: Psychological Foundations, Ethics, and Educational Implications will be published May 2020. In this book, we talk about the history of purpose, or “life project” as it is translated in Portuguese, in positive psychology. We describe how a “life project” (or purpose) is internalized by the self, psychologically.

Valeria: We worked with other scholars to explore how values, beliefs, and feelings also guide purpose development. The main goal of the book, though, is to provide insight about how to incorporate what we know about purpose formation into teacher professional development and classroom practice.

Q: How does your book and recent work connect to The Good Project?

Ulisses: For a teacher to support their students and the development of purpose, they must be “good teachers.” We believe that for teachers to be good teachers, they must embody the “three Es” outlined by The Good Project: excellence, ethics, and engagement.

There are three dimensions to purpose: personal, social, and professional. We want teachers to help students develop purpose in these areas, but we also believe teachers need to have their own defined sense of purpose. Teachers need to reflect on their “life project” and decide how their own personal purpose as an educator connects with the social world (or, as Bill Damon puts it, the world beyond the self).

Q: How can educators make sure they are helping students develop purpose in their classrooms?

Ulisses: We utilize active learning methods with teachers with whom we work. Active learning methods place the activity of the student at the center of pedagogy, including strategies like project-based learning, design-thinking, and conflict resolution. Because we want students to build their own “life project” or purpose, we try to help students think through realistic situations where they have the possibility to experience different kinds of perspectives.

Valeria: As a concrete example, we have used conflict resolution in the form of ethical conundrums to help students understand that there are many different ways to resolve a dilemma, and not necessarily one right and one wrong way to do things. The ways we might choose to solve a conundrum relate to our sense of purpose and identity. We also use concept maps to help students reflect on what it means to be “good.” We ask questions like, “What makes a good teacher? What is a good life project?”

Q: Why is having a sense of mission/purpose important?

Valeria: When we interviewed students, we find that they talk about happiness, satisfaction, and self-accomplishment. It’s important to integrate these different dimensions, and we find that purpose plays a role here.

Ulisses: We are also trying to understand how values become part of identity from both a pedagogical perspective and a psychological perspective. Our ultimate goal is to help shape “good” people who do good for others. When we ask the question, “What makes a good person, and how can I be good?”, we need to know how people form and integrate their values and beliefs, and in an ethical manner. We want to encourage “goodness” in personal, social, and professional dimensions, and a truly “good” purpose is one that impacts the world beyond the self in positive ways, which is important for a well-functioning and healthy society.

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You can learn more about the work that Ulisses and Valeria are doing related to The Good Project in Brazil at this website: http://www.thegoodprojectbrasil.org/

Teaching about Genocide and Atrocity Prevention: Challenges faced by Educators

By Anne Burt and Lynn Barendsen

With thanks to our funders: The Argosy Foundation, Eiichiro and Yumi Kuwana, and The Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

January 27, 2020, marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, commemorated in the United States and other nations with national media coverage and events in many cities. Yet despite continued awareness of the Holocaust among many older Americans, a 2018 national survey found that two-thirds of American millennials could not identify what Auschwitz is, and 22 percent had not heard of the Holocaust, or were not sure whether they had heard of it. The study defined millennials as adults ages 18-34, and was commissioned by The Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. As reported in The New York Times, the study involved 1,350 American adults interviewed by phone or online, and millennials were 31 percent of the sample.

This important finding places educators who are trying to tackle the already difficult topics of the Holocaust and atrocity prevention in an especially tough position. In terms that we have been using, teachers who are trying to do Good Work (defined as work that is excellent, ethical and engaging) are facing challenges on multiple fronts. Few have the time or the resources for the professional development opportunities currently offered by institutions such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, or by excellent education organizations such as Echoes and Reflections, Facing History and Ourselves, and the USC Shoah Project. In fact, many institutions don’t even have the capacity to bring students to visit local museums, let alone to national museums requiring travel and lodging. Teachers struggle with ethical challenges in the classroom, trying to tackle these topics but fearful of not doing so well. As a result, some avoid teaching these topics altogether. Those teachers who do try to address these subjects on their own report feeling isolated, wishing they had a network of peers and mentors they could turn to for help. Without time and resources for professional development, these teachers’ options are limited, putting them at risk of abandoning the struggle to teach difficult topics altogether.

For the past year, we have been working with The Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide (CPG) at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. Our charge: to research how the Museum might help emerging adults make meaningful links among the Holocaust, contemporary atrocities, and their lives today. Additionally, we are trying to understand not only the challenges teachers face in trying to do good work, but also the challenges encountered when they teach about the models of bad work.

CPG leads the Museum’s genocide prevention efforts through conducting research and documentation in countries where people are at high risk for genocide and other atrocities. Staff members work with policy makers, create exhibitions, public programs, and online resources, and, through CPG’s Early Warning Project, help governments and nonprofits take action before violence escalates. Our specific assignment: to conduct research on secondary school educators’ interest in, and barriers to, teaching their students about contemporary instances of genocide and atrocities alongside teaching about the Holocaust. The long term goal is to help CPG develop a generation of teachers and students who are willing and prepared to view atrocity prevention as a priority. Additionally, CPG hopes to empower this generation with knowledge so that they will be in a position to take action.

For the first stage of this research, we developed a broad educator survey, held in-depth educator interviews, and conducted a landscape analysis of existing programs and resources on contemporary instances of genocide and atrocities for secondary school teachers. In this post we highlight notable issues uncovered thus far.

We began our research with an online survey, sent via email to a combination of educators who have experienced the Museum’s current professional development opportunities, educators who have inquired about the Museum’s professional development, and a broad list of US-based secondary school teachers not known to be connected to the Museum. 366 responses to the survey were received.

In brief, analysis of the survey results shows that teachers identified the following needs as most pressing, in order from most frequently mentioned to least frequently mentioned:

1) resources to teach contemporary genocide and atrocity prevention

2) resources that save time

3) resources that are flexible

4) resources that alleviate isolation and financial constraints

5) resources to combat resistance to teaching these topics

Respondents to the survey who indicated that they would be willing to be interviewed to help the Museum delve deeper into survey findings were selected for telephone interviews. Respondents were chosen to represent a range of demographics: geography, race, ethnicity, subject matter taught, length of time teaching, whether or not they were recipients of the Museum’s professional development. The interviews reinforced the survey findings and allowed us to delve more deeply into key themes.

First, we will discuss the issues presented by those who are currently teaching the Holocaust and contemporary genocide; then we will turn to the themes presented by those who are not currently teaching these topics.

Educators currently teaching the Holocaust and contemporary genocide

Themes that emerged from these interviews focused on why teaching these subjects matter to them. We learned that teachers hope to make historical events real for their students and to help students relate to survivors. Many educators’ goals can be framed within the larger category of creating empathy; by doing so, they are able to help their students make connections, both to history and to those who have survived genocide. Even within our small interview sample, however, teachers grappled with both the positive and negative consequences of trying to create empathy.

Pros and Cons of Creating Empathy

Some educators explained that they want students to believe they can do something to stop these events, that they have power, and that they should try to make a difference. Others explained that they hoped their students would become kinder, more empathetic individuals as a result of studying these events. However, one respondent, a social studies teacher from a public school in Tennessee, voiced concern that a focus on emotion and feeling can be overwhelming: “… we’re trying to have students feel too much…empathy. They can come away with the impression that the world is bad, people are terrible”.

By contrast, another educator who teaches world history in a public school in South Carolina, said he hoped to make students uncomfortable by pointing to the complexities involved in studying historical events, that he hoped they would “come away from this with having more questions than answers.”

Numerous teachers mentioned that they want their students to be able to recognize warning signs in order to help prevent future genocide. A global studies public school teacher based outside of Seattle, Washington, hoped to contextualize current events both around the world and in the U.S. for his students:

We should be progressing as a society and in fact it’s just getting worse. Numbers, statistics, surveys – how little people know about the Holocaust. It feels as though the same attitudes are pervasive again. History repeating itself – I worry that it’s a realistic possibility. Modern atrocities happen. Could it happen in a modern country? Things happen in developing nations; I don’t actually know that it’s going to be exclusive to those….

Another educator– an English Language Arts teacher from Washington, D.C. who has taught in both private and public schools — qualified this notion:

We shouldn’t burden our students with this huge responsibility – [it’s] not just on them and that’s not fair. I want my students to feel that they have agency, their voice matters, absolutely, but I tend to do that more at a local level. True change can happen right in front of you.

Yet another example points to the fact that reactions to studying the Holocaust, or to meeting survivors, vary greatly based on the students’ life experiences. This educator works primarily with public high school students in rural Texas who are in the custody of Child Protective Services (provided to children who are at risk of or are experience physical, sexual or emotional abuse). In relating the experience of inviting a Holocaust survivor to talk with his students, he described a particularly poignant connection, and thereby message, his students received:

[The students] had been through some horrific stuff, abuse, mostly from family. I brought a Holocaust survivor in to speak to them…The way he connected with them – I mean, they heard all the horrible stuff, but it was like, to them, nobody understands the horrible stuff I’ve been through and I’m not going to ever be anything. And here’s someone who’s been through horrible stuff who’s done something with his life, ‘If he can do it, I can do it.’

Educators not currently teaching the Holocaust and contemporary genocide

Among those educators who do not teach about the Holocaust, contemporary genocide or atrocities with any depth or regularity, a few themes emerged: resistance from students, families, or administrators, or teachers themselves being concerned about “getting it wrong.” Teachers indicated that they feel isolated and without the support they need to manage these difficult subjects, especially because they do not have time or resources for professional development or even to bring their students to a museum.

Resistance

One educator, a social studies teacher from North Carolina, addressed the resistance to these subjects she encountered from her students:

Particularly in our area, people have come to accept hate. That sounds really harsh, but things that they see on TV, they don’t recognize the people who are being shot, or beaten. They don’t see them as people, almost as though they’ve been demonized already. [I can hear evidence of their] Families’ closemindedness, saying the press is fake, facts aren’t facts.

Lack of Time to Create New Units

An English Language Arts teacher from a public high school in Michigan described the barrier she faced due to diminishing support from schools for teacher professional development:

A unit that could take 12 hours to plan ends up taking 50 hours to plan, and when you have 5 classes to plan, that’s not ideal. There are schools that will give teachers PD time, or days, to create new units. But most of the schools around here won’t do that anymore. So there’s no curriculum time. That’s all on your own time. So if you’re creating from a documentary, or whatever, and you have to start from scratch and try to fill all the holes and tie into something else, it doesn’t always work. It’s not as cohesive.

Getting it wrong

Another teacher from a dense urban area of Texas gave voice to many of his colleagues’ fears of teaching difficult subjects:

As a US History teacher, I’m African American, and we talk about the last section of US history that we cover (Civil War, Reconstruction) there are SO many who don’t cover slavery, reconstruction, civil war with fidelity because “it makes me feel uncomfortable”. I can see this happening as well with the Holocaust…It doesn’t mean that you have all the answers, but you can’t gloss over the hard stuff.

* * *

In our Good Project research, conducted two decades ago, educators were among the “Caring” Professions we investigated. These were individuals who worked directly on behalf of others, including, for example, those involved in the medical professions. We learned that educators were especially vulnerable in terms of burnout. To summarize, without the support of peers or institutions, they often found it difficult to stay engaged. Although many found meaning in their work with students, maintaining their commitment to that work over time became increasingly difficult without a shared mission or sense of purpose.

Using this frame to understand our research involving contemporary educators, we can confirm that many of them feel vulnerable. Of all the survey respondents, 53 percent answered “yes” when asked if their students raise questions about recent or current instances of genocide or atrocities in the classroom. Overall findings from the survey and interviews showed that teachers want to be able to address these questions but either lack resources, awareness of resources, or resources they can realistically integrate into their classrooms based on constraints such as time and requirements.

As much as educators expressed a need for resources, they also expressed real fears about their own lack of knowledge. Many don’t feel ready to search for curricula or for extensive professional development: first, they’re seeking straightforward resources from a trusted source, even before beginning to tackle the creation of lesson plans. Teachers are looking for help with their own basic understanding because they are being asked tough questions by their students about the world today, whether educators teach instances of genocide or not.

While we didn’t survey students directly, we did survey educators about the kinds of student questions they found most challenging. Perhaps not surprisingly, educators reported that they found students’ existential questions about humanity’s capacity for genocide and atrocities difficult to answer. However, we were equally struck by the many teachers who reported that it was difficult for them to answer when students asked questions such as: “What is genocide?” or “Did the Holocaust really happen?” or “Why should I care?”

With the general population’s awareness of the Holocaust lower among millennials than older generations, we cannot simply assume that new teachers, most of whom are themselves millennials, will come to classroom teaching with knowledge of the Holocaust. Without access to broad, basic, introductory opportunities to make these connections themselves they cannot be expected to teach their students how to make meaningful connections to contemporary atrocities. It is our hope that this research will provide a useful foundation for the Center for the Prevention of Genocide to help both teachers and students turn the alienating question of “Why should I care?” into the shared mission of “I want – and need – to know more.”

Anne Burt is a consultant specializing in projects at the intersection of public engagement, communications, education, and the arts & humanities. From 2012-2018, she was Chief Communications Officer, then Chief Creative Officer, for the nonprofit organization Facing History and Ourselves. She teaches graduate courses in communications and marketing for Columbia University’s Nonprofit Management Program.

Lynn Barendsen is a Project Director at Project Zero, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Since 1996, she has been part of the Good Project, an effort to identify individuals and institutions that exemplify good work – work that is excellent in quality, socially responsible, and meaningful to its practitioners – and to determine how best to increase the incidence of good work in our society.

Intertwining "Multiple Intelligences" and "Good Work"

By Howard Gardner

Close to forty years after I first began to write about the concept “Multiple Intelligences,” the topic still dominates my mailbox, with questions arising each day, often from scholars, researchers, or educators in remote corners of the world. And while nearly every question has been posed before, I try when possible to provide a succinct and useful response.

But I am also frustrated. Rarely if ever does a questioner talk about the uses to which the several intelligences are to be put. The assumption: It’s desirable in and of itself to discover what intelligences a person has and/or what intelligences can be cultivated; and that their uses (presumably benign) will take care of themselves.

Alas, that’s not the case. For decades, I have sought to make the point that intelligences are morally and ethically neutral. One can use the same intelligence for benign or malignant ends. The examples are familiar. Both Nelson Mandela and Slobodan Milosevic had plenty of interpersonal intelligence. Mandela used his interpersonal intelligence to inspire his fellow citizens as well as human beings around the world; Milosevic used his interpersonal intelligence to foster ethnic hatred and ultimately genocidal endeavors. 

By the same token, both Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Joseph Goebbels had considerable linguistic intelligence (in German). Goethe used this talent to write great prose and poetry; Goebbels used his linguistic intelligence to create the vilest forms of propaganda. And one could make the same point about each of the remaining intelligences—musical, spatial, bodily, naturalist, logical—though it’s quite difficult to delineate a malignant use of intrapersonal intelligence—perhaps masochism.

I propose a new set of “rules of the road.” From now on, when I am asked about “MI,” I will respond, “To what uses do you propose to put the intelligence or intelligences in which you are interested?” By this “move,” I hope to nudge people towards considering the values that they are seeking to promote (and, at least by implication, those values that they would spurn or work hard to abolish). And perhaps, once they reveal what they would like to achieve with a battery of intelligences—or, for that matter, through activation of a specific intelligence—then we can consider how best to achieve that goal. Or, if the goal seems pointless or destructive, we should engage the correspondent in a discussion of ends and means.

Of course, once one begins to discuss what is good, and what is not, we enter the domains of values—an area which scientists (as well as many non-scientists) are wary of. It’s okay to minimize the issue of values when one is discussing atoms or genes—but that neutrality can be pushed too far. After all, atoms can be split to produce energy—and that energy can be used for benign or malignant purposes. So too, we can now create and manipulate genes—again, for positive or questionable purposes.

And so, as we touch upon these issues, we enter a domain that my colleagues and I have been working on almost as long as the study of intelligences: what it means to be good, and what it means to do good. This is the province of what we now call The Good Project. We have sought to identify the three components (the three Es, represented as a “triple helix”) of good work: good work is technically Excellent; it is personally Engaging; and it is carried out in an Ethical manner.

By the same token, we have identified the three components of good citizenship.  Once again, the good citizen is excellent—he or she knows the laws; is engaged—cares about what happens in the society; and, again tries to carry out duties in an ethical way.

What of the spheres in which “goodness” is manifest? For thousands of  years,. individuals have pondered how to deal with others in their immediate circle—what we have termed “neighborly morality.” The key tenets of neighborly morality are captured in the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments and other fundamental sayings, proverbs, tales and, in recent millennia, texts that arise and circulate within an identified community.

But over this period, societies have become more complex, Human relations have become increasingly transactional and are carried out over long distances. In this changed and increasingly global environment, it’s important to delineate a new set of roles—which we call the role of worker/professional and the role of citizen. It becomes important to define the rights, but also the obligations, of those who spend a fair amount of their lives in a community of workers or a community of citizens. To encompass this terrain, and to complement neighborly morality, we have coined the phrase “the ethics of roles.”

Even carrying out neighborly morality can be difficult. And once one contemplates the newer roles of worker and citizen, a determination of what is ethical, and what is not, constitutes a considerable challenge. There is no formula for ascertaining the ethical—in fact, an issue becomes an ethical one precisely because it does not permit of an easy, formulaic solution.  

To make progress on tackling this terrain, on tackling specific ethical issues, we find it useful to delineate—in rough order of activation and application—several Ds:

• Dilemma (recognized as such initially or pointed out by a knowledgeable individual)

• Discussion or debate about the dilemma, how best to articulate and approach is resolution

• Decision (and resulting action or inaction)

• Debriefing, about what happened, and whether the dilemma could have been handled more effectively, and how to handle a similar one when it arises in the future.

It is easiest to think of the deliberative process as involving language. But one can also contemplate ethical dilemmas as they are portrayed in works of art—for example, dramas or documentaries or even scrolls or paintings. And of course, these are matters of the heart, as well as of the head.

Deciding what is good, and then pursuing the good, have never been easy. And in the time of the Internet, digital media, social networks, artificial intelligence, deep learning, and the like, it is harder than ever. Misinformation is more rampant  than ever before, and it is often more widely circulated and more easily accepted than is well-researched, reliable information.

But unless we want to toss a coin, or disregard “the good” altogether, we have no choice but to marshal our strongest resources, seek to delineate and defend what we believe to be good, and then achieve it.

And perhaps—and this is my fondest hope—we can mobilize our several intelligences to determine both what is good and how best to realize it.

© 2020 Howard Gardner

What Is A Profession? A Tip

By Howard Gardner

Early September 2019. My wife and I have a free day in Zurich. From a menu offered by our hosts, we decide to take two tours. In the morning, we elect to tour the old city by foot—visiting buildings, gardens, squares, historical landmarks, and shops both old and contemporary. We have a terrific guide, who provides a splendid tour. She is filled with information about the city, past and present. She displays and draws on maps from different historical eras, speaks several languages, and tolerates the range of questions from our group—whether appropriate or foolish, terse or verbose.

After a light lunch, we proceed in the afternoon to our second tour: a walk through the art museum. There, after a brief introduction from an administrator, we pass through several selected galleries—spanning the art world from the middle ages to the contemporary era, from jewels to paintings, from Swiss artists to ones from different corners of the world. Again, we have a terrific guide, who provides an excellent tour. Armed with art books, she makes appropriate references to works that are not in the collection, and also to artists from other art forms. She impresses us with her ability to shift languages, invoke diverse terminology, and draw on appropriate examples from a range of art forms.

We express our gratitude to the guides, who welcome our approbation. But then, a crucial difference emerges. With respect to the first guide, we ask whether we can offer her a tip. She graciously says that the tip is not necessary, but she happily accepts the tip and places it in her hip pocket. A few other members of the tour follow suit.

With respect to the second guide, we do not make a similar gambit. Indeed, it does not ever occur to us. Rightly or wrongly, we believe that the guide would be insulted, and others in our small touring group would question the appropriateness of the gesture.

Why this differentiation? And is it appropriate?

The short answer: the guide in the art museum presents herself as a professional, in her dress and demeanor. She is introduced to us by an administrator at the museum, who calls her “Doctor,” and who describes her educational background. And she treats members of the tour—whose backgrounds as educators are known to her—as peers.

In contrast, the guide of the city simply appears without introduction and is dressed informally. She does not indicate anything about her educational background, nor does she signal any knowledge of the identities of the tourists. And the book of maps to which she occasionally refers appears to have been assembled by herself.

In the cultures with which I am familiar, we tip individuals who serve us, and we don’t tip individuals who present themselves as peers and whom we regard in that way. Just as my wife and I, as professors, would not expect a tip were we to lead a delegation from Colombia or China around campus, so, too, the guide in the art museum might feel belittled if we offered her a tip—though not, perhaps, if we invited her for coffee after her job has been completed.

But is this right? Just because we distinguish traditionally between “service worker” and “peer,” should we? If the competence and essential performance are identical, should we make a distinction based on social labels?

I have no desire to cause an upheaval of the social order—even if I could. (There’s enough of that going on in the world these days!) But there’s a lesson that can be drawn from our experiences in Zurich.

It may well be the case that professions, as we know them, are disappearing from the work landscape. So many roles that used to be carried out by trained professionals are now carried out by paraprofessionals, if not by “bots” or other artificial intelligence devices. To be sure, there may well be physicians and physicists for a while longer; but even these individuals may be trained quite differently—perhaps no longer going to professional schools, perhaps no longer placing a few letters of the alphabet before or after their proper names.

What do I hope will remain? A sense of what it means to be a professional: to be well educated, to treat all individuals with dignity, to be proud of the work role that you have adopted, and—most crucial—to recognize ethical dilemmas, to ponder them, to try to do the right thing in difficult circumstances, and, whatever one decides, to seek to learn from one’s mistakes and to do better the next time. Traditionally we expect this kind of deportment from those who are called professionals; but I would like this set of attributes to be expected equally from both of our guides, and therefore, to be able to think of and treat them equivalently.

I would be saddened if we lost a sense of professionalism.

Global Citizens Youth Summit Students Share Ideas on Good Work

by The Good Team

The second annual Global Citizens Youth Summit was held at Harvard University in August 2015, bringing together rising high school seniors from 14 different countries. Founded by Yumi Kuwana, the Summit is an intensive program designed to foster a world-wide civic outlook and to encourage the next generation of leaders to do good. Several of the Summit’s lectures focused on the three E’s of the Good Project (excellence, ethics, and engagement).

Kuwana invited us to come to her session on “Excellence.” During the discussion, she focused attention on the need to cultivate qualities such as self-esteem, resilience, empathy, and integrity in order to thrive in a multicultural world. Asking students to offer their ideas on the meaning of “excellence,” Kuwana stressed the importance of developing a disposition of perseverance while remaining open to continuous learning.

We spoke with four students about their experiences at the Summit and learned about their insights on leadership and Good Work. Please see, in an edited version of our discussion, selected quotes from the young scholars.

Q: After today’s session, which of the 3 Es (engagement, ethics, and excellence) did you find most compelling? Why?

“Excellence, because it can be difficult to remain excellent in challenging situations. I also find ethics to be compelling because it may be hard to hold true to your values as well.”

“I liked learning about all of the 3 Es. One thing I would add to the discussion is that ethics varies based on your culture or doxa (shared beliefs with others), and that through comparison across cultures, we can see the varying norms that shape societies under the surface.”

“Ethics was most compelling for me because there are many ethical problems in the world, and I am very curious about that. There are some Korean people living in Japan because of the former colonization efforts, but sometimes these Koreans are disoriented by Japanese society. Many Japanese young people are interested in this and other ethical problems.”

Q: Tell us about a memorable experience from your own life that you think connects with Good Work themes.

“I see engagement in the way my father loves having children and has a passion for his family. I have over twenty siblings (which is not entirely unusual in Somalia, where I am from), and I see serious engagement in the way that my father cares for us.”

“There is one committee member of my school’s student union who really embodies engagement. He is always able to mobilize other members to take action on specific issues and to bring lots of people together in discussions that incorporate multiple viewpoints.”

“In my own education, I’m used to passively listening to lectures from my teachers. The Harkness method of teaching that was used in this program has motivated me to strive for more.”

Q: What kinds of projects do you do in your own life that reflect Good Work?

“I worked at an orphanage center in Somalia, tutoring children. The military officials who are charged with overseeing the orphans are usually not very caring, but because I showed concern for them, the children came to trust me.”

“I am very active in figure skating, which gives me a sense of accomplishment outside of academics. By striving for excellence and feeling a sense of engagement in this hobby, I find that it easy to stay involved even when there are times I feel like quitting.”

“The organization of our school carnival was a project that required excellence and engagement from me and my peers. This was open to the entire school community, and in order to ensure that everything ran smoothly, we had to put in long hours of effort filling out paperwork, inviting local businesses, and setting up booths. The event was a success because of our dedication.”

Q: Tell us about a mentor that you have or someone that you look up to. What makes this person admirable? Do they exemplify Good Work?

“I look up to Jonathan Starr, a former hedge fund investor who started a school with the goal of providing a better education to young Somalis. Everything was provided to me as a student there. With Mr. Starr as a mentor, I see how he gave me a valuable opportunity to tap into my potential, which I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to access.”

“I have a friend a year older than me who is going to Oxford this year. He is gifted at math, and his commitment to the subject demonstrates excellence and engagement. I am grateful for his encouragement, pushing me to do better at my studies and to be more involved in extracurriculars.”

“My father is a doctor, and I really respect him and the way he interacts with patients. Even if he gets a call in the middle of the night, he makes sure to be available, consulting with other doctors over the phone. He works hard and is still very modest, which for the Japanese is an important virtue.”

Q: What does leadership mean to you? What are the characteristics of a “good” leader?

“A good leader understands what his or her people need and the best ways to satisfy those needs. Leaders also set positive examples and create a legacy for themselves, understanding the responsibility they have to show people there is something ‘better’ for which to aim.”

“Good leaders should have the capability to organize people and be forceful commanders with the strength to make difficult choices while still remaining aware and thoughtful. They commit themselves to serve the will of the community. However, good leaders are not necessarily good people (as outlined in Machiavelli’s The Prince).”

“Leadership isn’t only about the ability to talk in front of large groups of people; leaders are ideally good listeners. On a wider scale, I think “global leaders” must understand other countries’ histories and perspectives and respect the traditions of others. I was born and brought up in Japan, so I have only known Japanese people, but when I look around the room at my fellow scholars, I see that I have friends and connections from all around the world.”

Q: How do you think you will take what you learned about Good Work and apply it to your life and work?

“My long-term goal is to help Somalis create a more stable government. It takes time to understand your capabilities, but this program has brought me a step closer to realizing how I can use my leadership skills to help those in my country.”

“I learned how beneficial discussions are to the understanding of multiple viewpoints. In Hong Kong, where I am from, it is taboo to ask ‘stupid questions’ in school, but the sessions at this summit have given me the confidence to ask for clarification if I don’t understand something that is being said in the classroom. I also learned more about life as a whole through the 3 Es; I feel that I now can recognize the effects of culture on our beliefs and how stereotypes can influence thoughts and actions. I will be more curious and seek to learn more in the future.”

“I want to be a diplomat and work globally, and what I learned in this summit will definitely be applicable in that line of work. The biggest thing I learned is to have a broader perspective and to be less judgmental of others, particularly those who come from different backgrounds. Before coming to this program, all I knew about some countries was what I had read in a textbook, and I automatically made certain assumptions about “developing” or “poorer” countries. However, by listening to the stories of the other scholars who come from these places, I see things in a different light. I should have more respect for those countries and those people. Here, we have had many conversations in order to share our ideas and diverse experiences.”

Click here to learn more about the Global Citizens Initiative.