Five Minds Excerpts

Howard Gardner is suggesting that the Five Minds that he describes increase one's likelihood of success in fulfillment in a hyper-competitive, hyper-connected world where information overload is almost a permanent state of being for many. His newest books is an extension, or is at least congruent, with his theory of Multiple Intelligences in that no one person is realistically expected to be competent at all aptitudes.

Below are mini-descriptions of each mind or aptitude in Gardner's own words:

"The disciplined mind has mastered at least one way of thinking. Without at least one discipline...the individual is destined to march to someone else's tune." Key to understanding this mindset is to understand the difference between learning a discipline versus learning subject matter. Learning a discipline means that you learn to think in a trained way like every other person working in that discipline. Scientists are a good example. Scientists observe the world, develop hypotheses and theories, design experiments etc. There are a myriad of subject areas in science. Subject matter would be the facts, formulas, and historical figures etc. within a certain subject ares. A disciplined mind is a developed and fluid critical thinking framework that is developed.

"The synthesizing mind takes information from disparate sources and puts it together in ways that make sense to the synthesizer and also other people. The capacity to synthesize becomes ever more crucial as information continues to mount at dizzying rates."

"The creating mind breaks new ground. It puts forth new ideas, poses unfamiliar questions, conjures up fresh ways of thinking, arrives at unexpected answers. In doing so, the creating minds seeks to remain at least one step ahead of computers."

"The respectful mind notes and welcomes differences among human individuals and between human groups [cultures]...In a world where we are all interlinked, in-tolerance or disrespect is no longer a viable option."

"The ethical mind conceptualizes how workers can serve purposes beyond self-interest. The ethical minds acts on the basis of analysis [ethical literacy]." Cultural and religious values would play an important part in developing the ethical mind, as well as domains such as philosophy and theology.