Five Minds for the Future

• October 11 2006• Royal Society of the Arts• Howard Gardner

The News

• Five Minds do not = 8, 8 ½, or 9 intelligences

Themes and Images of the Future

• globalization• proliferation of knowledge• new disciplines and interdisciplinary efforts• instant communications• unprecedented competitiveness• the genetics revolution• new forms of criminal activity (cyber)• Possible/probable clash of civilizations,

worlds

Newly at a premium in this century

• Out-of-the-box thinking• Flexibility, “just in time” responses• Going beyond the disciplines• Problem-centered teams• Complex “Hollywood style” projects

and productions• Forms of nonlinear thinking• Beyond power point!

The Five Minds

• Disciplined• Synthesizing• Creating• Respectful• Ethical

Greatest invention of last 2000 years?

The Disciplined Mind

• The ways of thinking in the major disciplines• Science (correlation not same as causation;

matters of evidence vs faith, opinion)• History (role of human agency, no experiments

possible, avoid presentism, each generation rewrites)

• Mathematics (beyond formulas, engage in discovery)

• The arts (beyond popular forms, formal properties, ‘reading’ ‘writing’ avoiding intentional fallacies)

• Beyond the literacies and ‘about-it is”• Professions, arts, crafts involve discipline(s)

But No Cigar

• Artur Rubinstein’s failure to practice

• Rigid applications, no stretch, no flexibility (my favorite whipping boys—evolutionary psychology and economics ueber alles– rational choice)

The Synthesizing Mind

The Synthesizing Mind

• Scads of information, especially on the web

• Largely undigested and unevaluated

• The synthesizing imperative• Good, bad, and “so-so” syntheses• Psychology (my discipline) has

dropped the ball

Towards Synthesis

• Goal (your best guess of what the final synthesis will be like)

• Starting point (including earlier syntheses)• Method, strategy (epistemic

frames/forms,schemas, including narratives, taxonomies, equations, maps, metaphors, images, meta-narratives, embodiments);

• First rough draft• Feedback of various thoughts• Your best synthesis, pro tem-just in time

No Cigar

• Procrustean efforts– Efforts that attempt to do too much—or are otherwise eccentric (e.g. the textbook that should be a doorstop)

The Creating Mind

The Creating Mind

• Mastering one or more discipline-10 year rule

• Synthesizing what is known• Going beyond the known– thinking

outside the box, an imperative in the computer (algorithmic) age

• Good questions, new questions• Robust, iconoclastic temperament• The ultimate judgment of ‘the field’

No Cigar

• Phlogiston• Ether• Cold Fusion• Most best-sellers• Most biennial art shows

Two additional minds– The human sphere (beyond

cognitive in usual sense)

The Respectful Mind

• Diversity as a fact of life, at home and abroad• Beyond mere tolerance • Need to understand others– perspectives,

motivation– emotional and interpersonal intelligence

• Not just students alone, or students and adults; also among parents, teachers, administrators—inappropriateness of ‘corporate, top-down model’ for schools and perhaps even for corporations

No Cigar

• Kiss up, kick down• Bad jokes• Mere tolerance• Respect with too many conditions

Promising

• Commissions on Peace and Reconciliation (more than two dozen countries)

• Barenboim-Said Middle Eastern orchestra

• Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project (intercultural penetration, transmission, syncretism)

Two Instances where (rightly or wrongly?) I changed my

own mind• Scarves in France• Cartoons in Denmark

• What of the recent ruckus about Mozart’s Idomeneo? Or Jack Straw’s remarks about wearing veils in Britain?

The Ethical Mind

Ethical Mind

• Higher level of abstraction than respectful mind

• Conceptualizing oneself as a (good) worker

• Conceptualizing oneself as a (good) citizen

• Acting appropriately in both roles

Ethical (Good) Work

• Excellent, expert, high quality• Ethical, socially responsible, moral• Meaningful, exciting, intrinsically

motivated

The Summit of Good Work

The Perils of Moral Freedom

• Students know the “right thing to do”

• Some do it• But too many deceive others and

themselves—why should I be more ethical than my peers seem to be?

• Is it enough to intend to use proper means in the future?

No Cigar

• Compromised Work --Demise of valued institutions in journalism, law, etc; Within education, letting the tests trump everything

• Bad Work (Enron/Plagiarism); Within education, giving students the answers to the test

Summary and closing thought…

• From a wise New Englander

“Character is more important than intellect”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

For more information

• Howardgardner.com• Goodworkproject.org• Pzweb.harvard.edu• Or……