Reading: Howard Gardner, 2007, ‘Minds Viewed Globally: A Personal Introduction’ in Five Minds For the Future, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, ch.1.

Howard Gardner developed the concept of multiple intelligences, suggesting the mind can be essentially be “divided into eight or nine separate faculties”. (Harvard Business Review 2010) More recently he created the concept of the five-minds.

Gardner suggests that there are certain types of minds we need to have if we are going to succeed in the coming ages. He proposes five minds that cover the spectrum of human cognition and interpersonal skills sets. The disciplined mind as able to master a skill, the synthesizing mind as able to bring different information together in a way that is accessible to others, the creating mind as able to conjure new ideas and strategies, the respectful mind as seeking to understand and integrate human differences and the ethical mind as creating methods of seeing the way our work can assist not just ourselves but the world at large.

Gardner also talks about rethinking our idea of education, as the current methods are not effective. The world is changing, and the types of skills that are most valuable are changing with it. If we want to create an effective education system we must first be clear about the values we want and how they can translate into outcomes. Gardner suggests that we must fashion young minds to be able to function highly in these five ways and that those who succeed will be leaders of the future. Nossal High School in Victoria is an example of an institution that has based their curriculum around Gardner’s five-mind theory, suggesting that it encourages their students to be highly analytical without inhibiting their learning. (Nossal High School 2012).

References:

Harvard Business Review. 2010. Five Minds For The Future. [ONLINE] Available at: https://hbr.org/2007/04/harvard-business-ideacast-37-f.html. [Accessed 23 August 2016].

Nossal High School. 2012. The Five Minds For The Future. [ONLINE] Available at: http://nossalhs.vic.edu.au/about-nossal/the-five-minds-of-the-future. [Accessed 23 August 2016].