A New Look!!

I have not posted anything for a while... and in lieu of writing a post, I thought I'd change the look of the blog. Whaddaya think??? :)

And... just to give you something to ponder over, check this out:



I just LOVE him!!

Howard Gardner: "Five Minds for the Future"

I have recently had the pleasure to read "Five Minds for the Future" by Howard Gardner, a professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education. His book, "Multiple Intelligences" was featured on one of my previous posts.

In the "Five Minds," Howard Gardner addresses the need to cultivate the minds of tomorrow in this age of technology and globalization. He lists the five minds as follows:

1. The Disciplined Mind
2. The Synthesizing Mind
3. The Creating Mind
4. The Respectful mind
   
5. The Ethical Mind

He takes each of the five minds and discusses them at length, including the challenges that we face as we look at the future of education.

And why do we need to take a proactive stance? Gardner begins by pointing to the following facts:

• Individuals without one or more disciplines will not be able to succeed at any demanding workplace and will be restricted to menial tasks.
• Individuals without synthesizing capabilities will be overwhelmed by information and unable to make judicious decisions about personal or professional matters.
• Individuals without creating capacities will be replaced by computers and will drive away those who do have the creative spark.
• Individuals without respect will not be worthy of respect by others and will poison the workplace and the commons.
• Individuals without ethics will yield a world devoid of decent workers and responsible citizens: none of us will want to live on that desolate planet.

Reading this book, I could not help but recall a recent TED video about the rapid progress of science and technology that will cause what the speaker, Juan Enriquez, calls the big "reboot":



Now... my take on all this?

I think if (that's a big if) we, as a global community, can achieve the delicate balance across the elements listed in the book, perhaps humanity still has a chance at a bright future. There's a lot of think about...

Learning to Shift Our Preconceived Mental Models

Here's another video that you may find interesting:

Jonathan Drori: Why we don’t understand as much as we think we do


It seems that I've been stuck on this theme for some time now. The more I dig, the more fascinated I become. Although this video mainly deals with our misconceptions about science, I think the same concept applies to all other aspects of life.

The following points especially stood out to me:

• We learn through experience more than from the teachers in a classroom.


• Once we have stored information in our minds, we look for evidence to reinforce our misconceptions.


• There are people all too able to provide that evidence and/or to create other barriers to new and accurate information.


• Neither we nor our children are empty vessels, as we are constantly gathering and accumulating data.


• Our early mental models are extremely persistent and difficult to shift.

I think we can apply this to just about every bias or pre-existing idea we have regarding race, culture, religion, gender roles, politics, tradition, and even our idea of God.

It's true that it is extremely difficult to look at any new information with a completely clean slate without any preconceived notions we have learned through someone else teaching us. hmmm...

I think the key is to always try to think and experience things for ourselves.

Sugata Mitra's "Hole In The Wall" Project

I watched a TED video of Sugata Mitra, wherein he talks about his Hole In the Wall project. A 20-min video with a speaker that is less than dynamic can be a challenge. However, it's well worth a look. He has some fascinating ideas.

Sugata Mitra's "Hole in the Wall" experiments have shown that, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other, if they're motivated by curiosity and peer interest.

He points to the following conclusions based on his "Hole-in-the-Wall" research:

• Remoteness affects the quality of education


• Educational technology should be introduced into remote areas first


• Values are acquired; doctrine and dogma are imposed


• Learning is a self-organizing system

He introduces the word "Outdoctrination," and he outlines his vision for:

An educational technology and pedagogy that is digital, automatic, fault-tolerant, minimally invasive, connected & self-organized... to address remoteness, values, and violence

During his speech, he quotes a scientist (whose name escapes me now) who said to him,

A teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be.

My own opinion on this is that a good teacher passes on his/her passion to the students. From my point of view, that's the only upside of having a human teacher. If that cannot be provided, well... yes, a machine will suffice.

Awesome research for the future of education...

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Last week, I fell in love with David Keirsey. This week, I'm in love with Sir Ken Robinson. This talk is from Feb 2006. Why haven't I seen it before? What an awesome person with an awesome vision for the future of education! He speaks my heart. This is what I've been trying to say for the past ten years, but did not have the right words...

In his hilarious TED speech, he touched my heart in places that were longing to be touched. I thought I was fighting a lonely and ineffective battle. But here's someone who is actually well respected and trying to make a difference. Bravo, Sir Robinson! (The video is 19 minutes but well worth it. Learn something, will ya?) :-)



One thing he said, though... When he was talking about women being better equipped to multi-task... I don't think that's a man/woman thing. I tend to think it's an S/N thing or SJ/NP thing. I am definitely not a multi-tasker, but my husband is. Any thoughts on this?

You can also listen to his lecture he gave in June 2008 at the award ceremony where he was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal by the UK's RSA (the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce).