Prof Gardner published this in his book of the same title in 2009. Five Minds for the Future
suggests that there are five (curiously) minds that enable a person to exhibit 21st century attributes & stand a chance of being successful in future uncertain society.
- The Disciplined Mind: The ability to display robust and valuable disciplines of thinking: thinking as an historian for example, being able to investigae scientifically, being able to take a philosophical approach
- The Synthesizing Mind: The ability to gather, aggregate and synthesize ideas from the disciplines into a coherent whole and to communicate that integration to other people.
- The Creative Mind: The capacity to uncover and clarify new problems, questions and phenomena. This is born from the previous two…being creative without having first been disciplined is tough.
- The Respectful Mind: The awareness of and appreciation for differences among human beings and human groups.
- The Ethical Mind: The attitude that ensures that you honour your responsibilities as a worker and as a citizen.
Professor Gardener has spoken about this on several occasions, below are links to a brief over view and a full length lecture on his theory.
Five minds in less than 5 minutes:
Click here to watch the RSA lecture he gave on the Five minds in a lot more than 5 minutes.