Looking for Good Work

by Amy Quon

A year ago, I was content in California—finishing up graduate school coursework and working in educational program assessment. Based on what I hear from everyone who has ever spent a winter in New England, I probably should have appreciated the sunshine and cool breezes back home (read: the opposite of gray skies and icy wind) a bit more. Yet, I felt strongly about moving here because I found myself in one of those precarious positions—where you know the work you are doing just isn’t enough.

For some people, it might be working against the grain everyday through nit-picking bureaucracies, with difficult colleagues, doing work that doesn’t seem to go anywhere and help anyone, or perhaps, it’s just not something that allows you to grow, it’s not where your passion is, maybe it’s just something you can do but not something you feel drawn to. I felt some combination of these factors, which pushed me to act, to take a risk, and to move towards something else.

After deciding to move to the east coast, I was confident; I had interviews lined up and a place to live. However, like thousands of others this year, I remained unemployed for several months. I was rethinking everything—whether or not it was possible to do work that was more valuable or better than what I previously had and whether it was even possible to pursue my ideal in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. All the while, I struggled to manage student loans, bills, rent, and this weird social pressure to be building my career, or establishing something, not wasting time. In the back of my mind, I remembered friends complaining about horrible jobs they were “stuck” in, but I kept thinking, at least they had a job. I had to remind myself that I was hoping for something more, but honestly, I’d often forget.

I wondered if the lack of conversation as a student, around the type of work I would do in the future, and the choices I’d be forced to make on the job played a role in my forgetting. Often, the lesson in school is to adjust your efforts to what works, what the teacher wants and expects, but when no one is looking, when we work in our communities or help a friend, these are the times when we know our best matters most. Having conversations around how to bind engagement and excellence in all of our work can prepare us to surpass expectations and manage challenges more proactively as they come—even if these challenges include shifts in economic opportunity restraining our realities and perceptions of choice.

Understanding the diversity of ways people are experiencing this push and pull between what they hope for and what seems possible is important in helping others to strive towards good work. Given my own luck in finding a great match of my skills and interests with the GoodWork team, I feel like beyond it all, things do turn out. And, I hope that through open conversation on this site, we can reflect on what good work means to each of us, so that ultimately, we find and offer that support.

What do you do in the summer?

By Wendy Fischman

Upon hearing that we work at a graduate school of education, people often ask us “What do you do in the summer?” “Do you get the summer off?” Our answer back is short: “NO!”

In fact, in many ways, our summer is busier here at work because it is the time that educators have time to breathe, reflect on their work, and think about the academic year that lies ahead. At Project Zero, we host an annual summer institute called The Project Zero Classroom, at which 300 educators from around the world come to hear lectures by Howard Gardner, David Perkins, Steve Seidel, and others, take minicourses about new ideas developed by Project Zero, and participate in study groups with other teachers about how they can use what they learned during the institute in their own settings. This year, we are also hosting a new institute called The Future of Learning. For these institutes, we spend a great deal of time preparing courses and materials for participants, and just when we are exhausted from the preparation, participants arrive in Cambridge, with much excitement and enthusiasm to meet other like-minded individuals.This summer, we anxiously await the summer institute because we are planning to launch the GoodWork Toolkit website. When educators who come to the Toolkit minicourse ask where they can learn more about the Toolkit, buy the Toolkit, and speak to others who have used it, we will finally have a place for them to visit.

Interestingly, the GoodWork Toolkit minicourse has evolved over time. Five years ago, we designed the course as a way to introduce educators to the notion of GoodWork, and to introduce materials they could use in the classroom to help students think about what “good work” means to them. At that time, our primary objective was to “train” educators to use the GoodWork Toolkit. At the first minicourse, in a group of about twenty educators, a high school teacher said to us, “I know these materials have been developed for us to use in the classroom with students, but this story helped me to reflect on my own teaching, the standards I have for my own work, and the messages I give to students about excellence. Other teachers agreed (we had just read the case of Alfred Bloom, the President of Swathmore College, who was considering ending the college’s football program) and at that point, we realized that the GoodWork Toolkit materials were not just helpful for students, but for educators as well.

In every course we offer, we ask participants to tell us a story about an instance when they felt torn between conflicting responsibilities or a situation when they were unsure of the best course of action. One elementary school teacher told us about taking over a classroom from a colleague who was on maternity leave. As she familiarized herself with the files on the various students, it became clear that they teacher on leave had kept sloppy records, and that her evaluations of students were very general and in most cases, far too generous. This teacher was in a dilemma about how to handle some of the students (whom she thought needed accurate feedback), the students’ parents (whom might be upset if they were told something different about their students than they had heard from the first teacher), and the principal (whom might be upset with the first teacher or with her, if it looked like she was causing too much controversy). The case we had just read in the course, one that focused on issues of excellence, helped this teacher to frame the problem in terms of these responsibilities.

However, these brief courses can only scratch the surface of responsibility in teaching. Year after year, educators tell us that the GoodWork Toolkit minicourse is an opportunity to reflect on their own work, which, as one teacher stated, “is often lost in the fast-paced lifestyle of teachers.” In a course evaluation, another teacher explained that the course “made me reflect on my own choices and made me wonder when I should be more aware of my actions and how they affect others.” With this understanding, we now introduce the GoodWork Toolkit as a set of materials not only for students, but also for educators, because we have found that the stories, questions, and activities ask people to think deeply about their work, regardless of their age or position. Moreover, we have also begun to use the GoodWork programs and materials with parents of students, as described in more detail on this website (on the In Practice page, Whole School Initiatives).

We hope that just like the summer institute Toolkit minicourse, this website will give educators an opportunity to think, reflect, and converse with others about GoodWork issues they face in their own work. Knowing that we have facilitated this kind of reflection and conversation among educators, and hearing your own stories, keeps us energized (even during the summer months).