Five+Minds+for+the+Future

from Sue:

//**Five Minds for the Future**//
Howard Gardner's new book

I think this is a timely book for our mission. Gardner writes; //The world of the future will demand capacities that, until now, have been mere options. Have you begun developing those capacities - in yourself and others?// Howard Gardner defines the cognitive abilities that will command a premium in the years ahead: [|read a review] [|Amazon's] inside look at front and back flap
 * - the disciplinary mind** - mastery of major schools of thought (including science, math and history) and of at least one professional craft
 * -** **the synthesizing mind** - ability to integrate ideas from different disciplines or spheres into a coherent whole and to communicate that integration to others
 * - the creating mind** - capacity to uncover and clarify new problems, questions, and phenomena
 * - the respectful mind** - awaremess of and appreciation for differences among human beings
 * - the ethical mind** - fulfillment of one's responsibilities as a worker and a citizen

added by Larry:

The late Neil Postman, in his 1995 book The End of Education, suggested five specific themes he believed would be particularly helpful and appropriate to our time and place. You could build a school around any one of these themes, he asserted These are not simply themes for the sake of themes; rather, he proposed them after thinking long and hard about the human condition and history and how we might best educate ourselves to survive and thrive as fully human beings.

The themes are:

(the interrelatedness of life on our planet and the need to be good caretakers)
 * -the spaceship earth**

(the limits of human knowledge and perfectibility)
 * -the fallen angel**

(the balancing of individual liberty and expression with the need for social cohesion)
 * -the American experiment**

(the story of how our interactions with many kinds of people make us what we are)
 * -the law of diversity**

(the ways in which we use various kinds of metaphor, conceptual models, and language (including the languages of the arts and sciences) to create the world in which we live)
 * -the word weavers/the world makers**

(I incorporated these five themes into the revised Senior Culminating Project course description for the Program of Studies for 2007-08; here, I’ve borrowed my own capsule descriptions which I wrote for that context.)