Roles: Curriculum Designer, Mentor, Cohort Instructor

Values-Based Social Design

I first took Joe Edelman’s course (back then it was called Human Systems) in 2019. After spending more time around the work and stalking him, Joe invited me to mentor students one-on-one in the School for Social Design.

Later, I helped Joe develop a cohort-based version of the course. Joe wrote the textbook and almost all the materials; I organized it into a curriculum and taught it to multiple cohorts, as well as preparing a fellow instructor who also successfully delivered the material.

Joe’s work had a formative impact on my intellectual development and continues to do so.

Some of the topics in this field include:

• distinguishing between norms, goals and values
• values vs. preferences
• articulating values
• exploring new ways of being
• emotions as a source of wisdom
• noticing when meaning is crowded out
• social games and practices that help people discover what they actually care about
• designing products, communities, and institutions around making values accessible rather than optimizing for shallow engagement
• aligning the design of a space with the values it is meant to support

Links:

https://www.sfsd.io/

https://textbook.sfsd.io/

https://www.meaningalignment.org/

Joe Edelman's Official Website