Using A Whole New Mind

In February of 2008, Tom Beazley and I presented a three-hour workshop and a separate one-hour presentation about how Grace-St. Luke's School has used Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind as a way to systematize deep inquiry and innovation in the school culture. Grace-St. Luke's, like most other schools, is diligently working to define what being a 21st century relevant school means. Based on the NAIS presence, we were invited to speak on this topic at the annual conferences of SAIS and TAIS. Here is the SAIS 2008 presentation:

From Whole New Mind SAIS 2008.pptx

Daniel Pink on YouTube

21st Century Standards

If we value them, we will learn to foster them and measure them. This article from Education Week, "States Press Ahead on '21st Century Skills'" by Catherine Gewertz tells about what some schools are doing.

21st Century Survival Skills

The work of Thomas Friedman and Daniel Pink does a great job in providing evidence that a new world, one that is fast and dynamic, is here to stay. They make the case that we indeed have experienced a massive paradigm shift to a global, interconnected, technology-driven way of communicating and interacting as people and as organizations. As a result, all types of individuals and organizations are struggling to respond and stay in sync, to remain relevant. Some do this willy nilly and others are trying to devise plans such as personal learning plans, organizational learning plans, or sustainability plans. The basis for these plans is this question: What will it take to survive in a new, fast, flat world?

A recent article in ASCD, "Rigor Redefined" by Tony Wagner, outlines 7 critical survival skills for us, as adults, trying to be in sync and us, as teachers, charged with preparing students for their challenges and opportunities in the 21st century. It is worth assessing where we are in relation to these skills:

1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
2. Collaboration and Leadership
3. Agility and Adaptability
4. Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
5. Effective Oral and Written Communication
6. Accessing and Analyzing Information
7. Curiosity and Imagination

How are we further evolving these skills in ourselves?
How are we explicitly teaching these skills to our students?

About Daniel Pink

Daniel H. Pink is the author of a three provocative books on the changing world of work.

His first book was Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working For Yourself. This book chronicled the phenomenon of people choosing to work as free agents instead of as corporate employees. Pink traveled coast to coast, interviewing people forging the way as free agents.

His newest work is The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need, the first American business book in the Japanese comic format known as manga. This book is interesting because of the visual format and the cult-like following it has created. I will post a synopsis of this book, too.

Before that, Pink wrote A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, a long-running New York Times and BusinessWeek bestseller that has been translated into 16 languages.

Dan's articles on business and technology appear in many publications, including the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Wired, where he is a contributing editor. He has provided analysis of business trends on CNN, CNBC, ABC, NPR, and other networks in the U.S. and abroad. He also lectures to corporations, associations, and universities around the world on economic transformation and the new workplace.

A free agent himself, Dan held his last real job in the White House, where he served from 1995 to 1997 as chief speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore. He also worked as an aide to U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich and in other positions in politics and government.

He received a BA, with honors, from Northwestern University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a JD from Yale Law School. To his lasting joy, he has never practiced law.

Dan lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and their three children.

Pink in a Nutshell

Daniel Pink's book is worth reading. It will broaden your life personally and professionally, regardless of the profession you are in. I like this book immensely for its usefulness because it is easy to read. It convincingly makes the argument that the world is permanently different and if you want to be relevant and competent in the whole new world, it is pretty simple: you need whole new skills in addition to the ones you have. Pink bundles these skills as a whole new mind. Here is the skeletal outline of the entire book:

Brief Historical Context

Pink gives a historical overview of the four major 'ages':

1. Agricultural Age (farmers)
2. Industrial Age (factory workers)
3. Information Age (knowledge workers)
4. Conceptual Age (creators and empathizers)

This is significant for educators for a few reasons. We teach this outline. But, we kinds of trail off shy of teaching the Information Age yet we have all lived through the information age. We all remember the first time we used a computer, the first time we emailed, learning what google was, and shopping online for the first time etc. Now, we do all these things and more all the time -- it is the completely new normal. But, we may not be in touch with the nuance of how the information age has evolved into a cultural search for making meaning of all of the information available to us. Pink helps point out that new Conceptional Age, which others also right about but call by other names like The Experiential Age or the Transformative Age. Understanding and actively participating in The Conceptual Age is where Pink focuses and believed businesses can completely distinguish themselves.

Part I of Pink's Argument: The Three A's

Three major forces are influencing all business in the current economy:

Asia (everything that can be outsourced, is)

Automation (computerization, robots, technology, processes).

Abundance (consumers have too many choices, nothing is scarce)

Pink does not dwell on this, or really even explicitly address it, but education is very much included in the businesses that are being changed by these current forces.

We have to ask three crucial questions for our continued success (our sustainability):

1. Can a computer do it faster or better?
2. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
3. Is what I'm offering have meaning in an age of abundance?

Part 2 of Pink's Argument: Six Essential Senses

To distinguish ourselves in this environment, we need additional tools in our toolbox. These two are creative tools compared to our well honed logical tools. Pink calls these his six essential senses:

1. Design - not just function.
   
2. Story - not just argument.
   
3. Symphony - not just detail focus.
4. Empathy - not just logic.
   
5. Play - not just seriousness.
   
6. Meaning - not just accumulation.

That's the whole book in a nutshell.

So what? Why does this matter to me as a person, as a parent, as a professional educator?

Oprah Loves Dan Pink

Oprah is featuring Dan Pink on a webcast series. Follow this link for listening, viewing, and reading options.

Read The Intro

Also on Oprah's website you can read an excerpt from A Whole New Mind. The intro gives an overview and case for developing additional tools, right brain tools, to add to your toolbox for better navigation and survival in the 21st century.

Oprah's Commencement Speech at Stanford

Oprah gave the entire 2008 graduating class of Stanford a copy of two books: A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and......A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink.

I fell in love with this book in April of 2006, not having an idea how big it would become. But, to me, it was timely and made perfect sense for where we are in the world today. The leadership team of Grace-St. Luke's spent a full year investigating the "six senses" that Dan Pink offers as lenses for inquiry into the opportunity and challenges of the 21st century. I facilitated 6 all day workshops with an expert in each sense and many innovative ideas resulted from this collective learning. Personally, I have delved deeply into the portfolio section of the book and I highly recommend doing that to develop new awarenesses and skills in the "six senses."

Watch Oprah's commencement address at Stanford
download GSL's NAIS 2008 Presentation "Developing a Whole New Mind At Your School"

Daniel PInk Podcasts

Any one of these podcasts are worth listening to and will give you a good overview of Daniel Pink's ideas:

Daniel Pink in interviewed by Alan November

Daniel Pink with Alan November re: School Design

Daniel Pink Econtalk Lecture -- basic overview of his work (about one hour)

Daniel Pink with CEORead -- they talk about how to stay abreast and keep up (37 minutes)

Dan Pink Video Interview

This short video interview will give you some idea of how Pink's themes relate to education. The main thing to remember is that left brain skills are essential but not sufficient.
eSchool News: TechWatch interview with Daniel Pink

What does that really mean: left brain skills are essential but not sufficient?

Who Wins The Future?

Below is the first paragraph of A Whole New Mind. Pink is able in these three sentences to illustrate how routine tasks perfected by knowledge workers are giving way in this flat world to people who can combine left-brained analytical skills with his new six senses because the level of creativity and synthesis that the Conceptual Age requires is not outsourceable.

So, do we believe this? How can we develop those right brain skills in ourselves and in our students?

"The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind -- computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. These people – artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers – will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest rewards."

Meaning Links

not just accumulation, but Meaning

How do we use Meaning as a lens in working with students, parents, peers, and for ourselves?

Meaning Links on Delicious

Play Links

not just seriousness, but Play

How do we use Play as a lens in working with students, parents, peers, and for ourselves?

Play Links on Delicious

Empathy Links

not just logic, but Empathy

How do we use Empathy as a lens in working with students, parents, peers, and for ourselves?

Empathy Links on Delicious

Symphony Links

not just argument, but Symphony

How do we use Symphony as a lens in working with students, parents, peers, and for ourselves?

Symphony Links on Delicious

Story Links

not just facts, but Story

How do we use Story as a lens in working with students, parents, peers, and for ourselves?

Story Links on Delicious

Design Links

not just function, but Design

How do we use Design as a lens in working with students, parents, peers, and for ourselves?

Glenn Malone, a Pink devotee and public high school principal has put together weblinks in Delicious for all of the items Daniel Pink mentions in the portfolio section for each sense. If you are interested in further developing this skill for yourself, these are good ways to go about doing that.

Design Links on Delicious

about Delicious and other social bookmarking tools -- follow this link to watch a short explanatory video that explains how Delicious and other social bookmarking tools work

Pink and Friedman

The World is Flat became a phenomenon enjoying tremendous
readership and intellectual heft around the world. Since 2005 readers have urged Thomas Friedman to expand the book. Readers expressed deep interest in knowing about how education systems were adapting to the flat world. Friedman is not stranger to education: his wife is a long-time public school teacher in suburban Maryland and his daughter is a first-year teacher in Washington, D.C. The updates in The World is Flat 3.0, were mostly about education and the type of education and learning that our kids will need to be competitive in the marketplace.

Read this article from The School Administrator February 2008: Daniel Pink interviews Thomas Friedman about his new edition.

The Adventures of Johnny Bunko

Daniel Pink's newest book is The Adventure of Johnny Bunko The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need.

Here is the book's message:

Many people work jobs that they don't like and are not well-suited for out of guilt, obligation, and not knowing what else to do. Many people ride the waves of what their job gives them instead of creating and designing their own destiny. People of 35+ years old were conditioned by their parents and culture to go to college, study something practical like accounting, and get a job. There was never any discussion about what you enjoyed or what you were good at. These people can be pretty miserable in mid-life. Through a magic chopstick genie, Johnny Bunko, the book's hero, is told 6 lessons that define the reality of life today.

Here are those six lessons:

1) There is no plan. All the planning and positioning we did with our parents years ago is irrelevant and you can make yourself sick if you are still living by it in an unintentional and unexamined way. There is no plan or map of the future. There is only opportunity for which you make good or bad decisions. The opportunities are not metered to you in a logical way. Logic is not necessarily your best tool in charting a course for the future.

"It is a fantasy to think that you can map out every step ahead of time and end up where you want. The world changes. Ten years from now, your job might be in India. Your industry might not even exist. And, you'll change, too. You might discover you have a hidden talent. If you try to stick to the plan even though you have realized that it is dumb, you will be miserable."

"Instead you need to make smart choices. You can make career decisions for two different types of reasons. You can do something for instrumental reasons, because you think it is going to lead to something else, regardless of whether you enjoy it or it is worthwhile. Or, you can do something for fundamental reasons, because you think it's inherently valuable, regardless of what it may or may not lead to... Instrumental reasons usually don't work. Things are too complicated, too unpredictable. You never know what's going to happen, so you end up stuck. The most successful people make decisions for fundamental reasons. They take a job or join a company because it will let them do interesting work in a cool place, even if they don't know exactly where it will lead. (They follow their heart.)"

2) Think Strengths, not weaknesses. Study the work of Martin Seligman (learned optimism) and Marcus Buckingham (strengths assessment) and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (flow).

"The research shows that the key to success is to steer around your weaknesses and focus on your strengths. Successful people don't try too hard to improve what they're bad at. They capitalize on what they are good at. What you do well gives you energy and creates flow. Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full of involvement, and success in the process of the activity." (Edward Hallowell talks at length about this in Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness.)

3) It's not about you. Steer clear of people for whom everything is all about them. No one cares. Businesses are mission-driven and you are not the mission.

"It's not about you. It's about your customer, it's about your client. Use your strengths, yes, but you are here to serve, not to self-actualize. Your projects are about advancing the mission in service to the customers and clients."

You matter and you are uniquely talented and important, that is why they gave you the job.

"The most successful people improve their own lives by improving others' lives. They help their customer solve its problem. They give their client something it didn't know it was missing. That's where they focus their energy, talent, and brainpower. Outward - not inward."

"The most valuable people in any job bring out the best in others. They make their boss look good. They help their teammates succeed."

"Pull your head out of you ego, sit down, and get back to work."

4) Persistence trumps talent every time. (mindset/Carol Dweck - about the process, not the outcome. Can't be afraid to fail.)

"There are massive returns to doggedness. The people who achieve the most are often the ones who stick with it even when others don't. They use their heads but also use their hearts. They show up, they practice and practice and practice some more. That's why they do so well in whatever career they choose."

With persistent effort, performance is improved which encourages more persistence which improves performance which encourages even more persistence. Lack of persistence acts in the opposite direction.

"The world is littered with talented people who didn't persist, who didn't put in the hours, who gave up too early, who thought they could ride on talent alone. Meanwhile, people who have less talent pass them by."

"Intrinsic motivation is so important. Doing things not to get an external reward like money or a promotion (praise from a parent or parental surrogate), but because you simply like doing it. The more intrinsic motivation you have, the more likely you are to persist. The more you persist, the more likely you are to succeed."

5) Make excellent mistakes.

"Too many people spend their time avoiding mistakes. They are so concerned about being wrong, about messing up, that they never try anything, which means they never do anything. Their focus is avoiding failure (again - mindset). But, that is actually a crummy way to achieve success. The most successful people make spectacular mistakes -- huge, honking screwups (this is Tom Peters' idea). Why? Because they are trying to do something big (BHAG - Peters). But each time they make a mistake, they get a little better and move a little closer to excellence" (Bob Waters and Tom Peters - In Search of Excellence).

What are good mistakes?

"Mistakes that come from having high aspirations, from trying to do something nobody else has done."

A bad mistake - playing it safe and comfortable. This leads no where. This is stagnation. If your are reflective about your process and your mistake, you will learn and improve. You will become perceptive and skilled.

"Bunko" means "to make a mistake from which the benefits of what you have learned exceed the costs of screwing up."

6) Leave an Imprint. Think everyday about your legacy. How will this place and these people be changed because of you and your work with them? There is incredible focusing and inspiring energy in considering this question. If you are intentional about trying to leave a good legacy, you can't be stagnant and afraid to take risks. You must be bold and reaching.

"Did it matter that I was here? Many people get to the end of their life and don't like the answer they have for this question...Think about the purpose of your work, your purpose. Your time here is not infinite and that you have limited time means don't wait to do something that matters...The truly successful people deploy themselves in the service of something larger than themselves. They leave their companies, the communities, there families a little better than before... This is what it means to be alive."

Read Johnny Bunko here

You can read the first 60 pages of The Adventure of Johnny Bunko by clicking this link.

Developing a Flat Classroom

Visit this directory at Atomic Learning to learn how to develop "a Flat Classroom" in seven steps. Vicki Davis is a teacher in rural Georgia. She shares her ideas and techniques through short video clips, so you can hone in on exactly what you are interested in or watch them all.


Discover lots of interesting easy ideas to incorporate into your teaching at Atomic Learning:

free technology tutorials for Mac
teacher2teacher project ideas and tutorials
self assessment of your digital communication skills