TIPTOE

Our last reading for Media 6 is the introductory chapter (Mind’s Viewed Globally) of Howard Gardner’s book, Five Minds For The Future. Gardner introduces the five minds which he believes are the most important for humans to develop and have now and in the future. These are:

1. The Disciplinary Mind
2. The Synthesising Mind
3. The Creating Mind
4. The Respectful Mind
5. The Ethical Mind

The Disciplinary Mind is the mastery of at least one school of thought, craft or profession. He notes that it can take up to ten years to master a discipline, and that part of a disciplinary mind is the training to continue improving one’s skills. A person must master the body of knowledge and the key procedures of a discipline (or more than one) in order to succeed in workplaces in the future.

The Synthesising Mind is the ability to synthesise information from different sources and integrate knowledges from different disciplines. It is also the ability to communicate these syntheses to others. Managers must have the synthesising mind, because they need to assess the task for their group, assess who is in the group, and execute the task according to all the differing factors. Without this mind, one may become overwhelmed with the alarming amount of information that is available and all the possible decisions .

The Creating Mind uncovers and clarifies new problems, puts forth new ideas, uses fresh new ways of thinking and finds new perspectives. They contribute new material. This is an important mind for leaders. Without this mind, people and professions may start to be replaced by computers.

The Respectful Mind is about having respectful relationships with people, especially respecting people different from yourself and from different cultures. This is important for working with and learning about others. This is particularly important for an increasingly globalised future.

The Ethical Mind is the ability to reflect on one’s place in the world, and their fulfillment of their duties as a worker and as a citizen. The ethical mind ponders the nature of their work, the needs and desires of the society that they live in, and sees everything in a bigger picture. They look beyond self-interest in society and in the workplace, and focuses on the question: what kind of a world would I like to live in?

These are the minds that Gardner believes we should have in the future, and he talks about the importance of education, so that future generations, as well as people already in the workforce, have the skills to thrive in the future.

Gardner also talks about the four main trends of globalisation, which are reasons why these five minds are very important to cultivate. These trends are:

1. The movement of capital and markets
2. The movement of humans
3. The movement of information through the internet/cyberspace
4. The movement of popular culture

I would like to remember this, because I haven’t seen anyone so succinctly describe what globalisation actually is (or what the tangible consequences of globalisation are).

This week’s reading, ‘Finding Time in a Digital Age’ (Wajcman, 2015) is about our current perceptions of time and technology. During the 20th century, the average time humans spent at work was decreasing, until it came to a standstill in the later half of the century at the democratized and standardized 8 hour days, 5 days a week. But, for some people, the amount they are working is more than ever before, and this text examines various academic texts that have discussed this shift in relation to the development of technology.

What I found most interesting about this article is the inclusion and the importance to the writer of discussing who is being left out of academic conversations about time, work and technology. For example, the discussions on the average work hours of a population fail to note the growing disparity between the work rich/time poor and the unemployed. So although there are people working long hours that include unpaid time working at home, thanks to the mobility and flexibility that technology brings, there are also more people who are unemployed and are being demonized for the way they spend their time. The chapter also discusses the often looked-over gender dynamics of time and work, such as the different patterns of employment between the genders, the inequitable unpaid domestic work and the intensified expectations of parenting. Wajcman ties it all together by explaining our hierarchical time culture, where status and pay measure the value of a person’s time, and that this is the real issue that should be discussed. We should be working on everybody’s time being valued equally. I really agree with Wajcman’s socially conscientious stance.

Finally, this point that Wajcman makes is very relevant to media and the work that a lot of us in the course want to do: ‘Technology consumes time through its rapid cycle of renewal, requiring an ongoing investment in skill acquisition”. The thing that I find the most difficult about media and the media course is keeping up with all the different technologies that I have to master. At first, I wanted to be good at everything; cameras, sound, editing, producing, but I know now that I am not that kind of person. There are people that can do all those things and do them well, but I don’t have the time or the attention to be able to keep up with all the camera technology and editing software. Over the past year and a half, I have gone down a path where I have focused my attention and abilities on producing, and I think that I excel in this field, so I am glad to know this before the end of my degree.