About Us
Many young people in America and abroad are doing admirable things. But in the past decades, American society, both older and younger generations, has been dominated by the three Ms
Money
Markets
Me
We need to flip those three Ms 90 degrees and encourage the three Es of GoodWork:
Excellence
Engagement
Ethics
And, to complete the job, we should flip the E another 90 degrees to get a W for
We
Howard Gardner
Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He also holds positions as Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and Senior Director of Harvard Project Zero. Among numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981. He has received honorary degrees from twenty-five colleges and universities, including institutions in Ireland, Italy, Israel, Chile, South Korea, and Greece. In 2005 and again in 2008, he was selected by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines as one of the 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world. The author of over twenty books translated into twenty-seven languages, and several hundred articles, Gardner is best known in educational circles for his theory of multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that there exists but a single human intelligence that can be assessed by standard psychometric instruments.
During the past two decades, Gardner and colleagues at Project Zero have been involved in the design of performance-based assessments; education for understanding; the use of multiple intelligences to achieve more personalized curriculum, instruction, and pedagogy; and the quality of interdisciplinary efforts in education. Since the middle 1990s, in collaboration with psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and William Damon, Gardner has directed the GoodWork Project-a study of work that is excellent, engaging, and ethical. More recently, members of the GoodWork Project have led reflection sessions in an effort to enhance the incidence of good work among young people. With colleagues at Project Zero, he is also investigating the nature of trust in contemporary society and ethical dimensions of the new digital media.
In order to produce 'good work' and become 'good workers,' young professionals need to be reflective about the purposes of their work and proactive about the approaches they take in their work. Young people need to ask themselves, 'What are the implications of my work and what are the ramifications of the work-related decisions I make?' Building in periodic reflection about the kind of work you set out to do, the ways in which you go about doing it, and on the final product, will increase the likelihood of 'good work.'
Wendy Fischman
Wendy Fischman joined Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1995 as a researcher with Project Co-Arts, a study of educationally effective community art centers. Since 1996, she has managed various aspects of the GoodWork Project, specifically focused on the meaning of work in the lives of young children, adolescents, and novice professionals. Wendy has written about education and human development in several scholarly and popular articles addressing topics such as life long commitment to service work, inspirational mentoring, and teaching in precollegiate education. She is lead author of Making Good: How Young People Cope with Moral Dilemmas at Work, published by Harvard University Press in 2004. Most recently, Wendy has co-developed a curriculum for students and teachers to introduce the concept of good work
in classrooms and schools. Wendy has taught humanities to middle school students and has evaluated school reform programs facilitated by a government-sponsored Regional Laboratory. She received a BA from Northwestern University.
Developing good work and good citizenship in a distrustful time is our challenge... in the same way our leaders are trying to rebuild trust in our nation, we are trying to build trust in our young people and get them excited about the future and about possibility - and to really get them to care.
excerpt from interview, HOW Online
Lynn Barendsen
Lynn Barendsen is a Project Manager at the GoodWork Project. After graduating from Bates College, Lynn spent several years engaged in graduate study in American literature at the University of Chicago and Boston University. She has published articles on African American and regionalist literatures. At Boston University she taught courses in literature and film, English and American literature, and expository writing. Lynn has been working on the GoodWork Project since 1997, focusing in particular on the work of young professionals. She has written several articles about young social and business entrepreneurs and young professionals in theater and business. Most recently, with Howard Gardner, she has co-authored a chapter on the Young Worker in a Global Age in the Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology and Work (forthcoming, 2009). With Wendy Fischman, she has co-developed the GoodWork Toolkit, designed to help develop a common language that school communities and other institutions can use to define their work and identify their goals.
Slowing down can be counter-cultural, especially in young lives that are technology-driven and filled with rapid-fire activities. It is vital that committed adults model and foster the ability and propensity to pause and evaluate one's own values, goals, and experiences in ways that are personally and socially constructive. Such self-reflection is not exclusively solitary: facilitated activities can deepen our self-understanding, reveal our commitments to others, and develop our ability to ask difficult questions of ourselves. When we structure reflection about ethics and identity we model and encourage the challenging work of aligning what we stand for with what we do.
Kathleen Kury Farrell
Kathleen Farrell worked in higher education for twelve years before enrolling as a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. As an assistant dean, Kathleen worked closely with faculty and staff to develop opportunities for students to explore and contemplate meaningful work and service through their in-class and co-curricular experiences. She has facilitated career and leadership development programs for students and staff, coordinated a campus-wide community-standards program, and designed orientation and disorientation
programs for first-year and senior students.
Kathleen's research explores self-reflection during adolescence and young adulthood: who makes time to consider their beliefs, goals, and experiences, what forms does their self-reflection take, and what function might self-reflection play in the development of their moral identity and sense of purpose? She has been a research assistant with the GoodWork Project since 2007.
