We live in a time of relentless change. The only thing that?s certain is that new challenges and opportunities will emerge that are virtually unimaginable today. How can we know which skills will be required to succeed? In Five Minds for the Future, bestselling author Howard Gardner shows how we will each need to master "five minds" that the fast-paced future will demand: · The disciplined mind, to learn at least one profession, as well as the major thinking (science, math, history, etc.) behind it · The synthesizing mind, to organize the massive amounts of information and communicate effectively to others · The creating mind, to revel in unasked questions - and uncover new phenomena and insightful apt answers · The respectful mind, to appreciate the differences between human beings - and understand and work with all persons · The ethical mind, to fulfill one's responsibilities as both a worker and a citizen Without these "minds," we risk being overwhelmed by information, unable to succeed in the workplace, and incapable of the judgment needed to thrive both personally and professionally. Complete with a substantial new introduction, Five Minds for the Future provides valuable tools for those looking ahead to the next generation of leaders - and for all of us striving to excel in a complex world. Howard Gardner—cited by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the one hundred most influential public intellectuals in the world, and a MacArthur Fellowship recipient—is the Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

This brilliant and revolutionary theory of multiple intelligences reexamines the goals of education to support a more educated society for future generations. Howard Gardner’s concept of multiple intelligences has been hailed as perhaps the most profound insight into education since the work of Jerome Bruner, Jean Piaget, and even John Dewey. Here, in The Disciplined Mind, Garner pulls together the threads of his previous works and looks beyond such issues as charters, vouchers, unions, and affirmative action in order to explore the larger questions of what constitutes an educated person and how this can be achieved for all students. Gardner eloquently argues that the purpose of K–12 education should be to enhance students’ deep understanding of the truth (and falsity), beauty (and ugliness), and goodness (and evil) as defined by their various cultures. By exploring the theory of evolution, the music of Mozart, and the lessons of the Holocaust as a set of examples that illuminates the nature of truth, beauty, and morality, The Disciplined Mind envisions how younger generations will rise to the challenges of the future—while preserving the traditional goals of a “humane” education. Gardner’s ultimate goal is the creation of an educated generation that understands the physical, biological, and societal world in their own personal context as well as in a broader world view. But even as Gardner persuasively argues the merits of his approach, he recognizes the difficulty of developing one universal, ideal form of education. In an effort to reconcile conflicting educational viewpoints, he proposes the creation of six different educational pathways that, when taken together, can satisfy people’s concern for student learning and their widely divergent views about knowledge and understanding overall.

An authority on the human mind reflects on his intellectual development, his groundbreaking work, and different types of intelligences--including his own. Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind was that rare publishing phenomenon--a mind-changer. Widely read by the general public as well as by educators, this influential book laid out Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. It debunked the primacy of the IQ test and inspired new approaches to education; entire curricula, schools, museums, and parents' guides were dedicated to the nurturing of the several intelligences. In his new book, A Synthesizing Mind, Gardner reflects on his intellectual development and his groundbreaking work, tracing his evolution from bookish child to eager college student to disengaged graduate student to Harvard professor.

Fifteen years ago, psychologist and educator Howard Gardner introduced the idea of multiple intelligences, challenging the presumption that intelligence consists of verbal or analytic abilities only -- those intelligences that schools tend to measure. He argued for a broader understanding of the intelligent mind, one that embraces creation in the arts and music, spatial reasoning, and the ability to understand ourselves and others. Today, Gardner's ideas have become widely accepted -- indeed, they have changed how we think about intelligence, genius, creativity, and even leadership, and he is widely regarded as one of the most important voices writing on these subjects. Now, in Extraordinary Minds , a book as riveting as it is new, Gardner poses an important question: Is there a set of traits shared by all truly great achievers -- those we deem extraordinary -- no matter their field or the time period within which they did their important work? In an attempt to answer this question, Gardner first examines how most of us mature into more or less competent adults. He then examines closely four persons who lived unquestionably extraordinary lives -- Mozart, Freud, Woolf, and Gandhi -- using each as an exemplar of a different kind of extraordinariness: Mozart as the master of a discipline, Freud as the innovative founder of a new discipline, Woolf as the great introspect or, and Gandhi as the influencer. What can we learn about ourselves from the experiences of the extraordinary? Interestingly, Gardner finds that an excess of raw power is not the most impressive characteristic shared by superachievers; rather, these extraordinary individuals all have had a special talent for identifying their own strengths and weaknesses, for accurately analyzing the events of their own lives, and for converting into future successes those inevitable setbacks that mark every life. Gardner provides answers to a number of provocative questions, among them: How do we explain extraordinary times -- Athens in the fifth century B.C., the T'ang Dynasty in the eighth century, Islamic Society in the late Middle Ages, and New York at the middle of the century? What is the relation among genius, creativity, fame, success, and moral extraordinariness? Does extraordinariness make for a happier, more fulfilling life, or does it simply create a special onus?

No one has failed to notice that the current generation of youth is deeply--some would say totally--involved with digital media. Professors Howard Gardner and Katie Davis name today's young people The App Generation, and in this spellbinding book they explore what it means to be "app-dependent" versus "app-enabled" and how life for this generation differs from life before the digital era. Gardner and Davis are concerned with three vital areas of adolescent life: identity, intimacy, and imagination. Through innovative research, including interviews of young people, focus groups of those who work with them, and a unique comparison of youthful artistic productions before and after the digital revolution, the authors uncover the drawbacks of apps: they may foreclose a sense of identity, encourage superficial relations with others, and stunt creative imagination. On the other hand, the benefits of apps are equally striking: they can promote a strong sense of identity, allow deep relationships, and stimulate creativity. The challenge is to venture beyond the ways that apps are designed to be used, Gardner and Davis conclude, and they suggest how the power of apps can be a springboard to greater creativity and higher aspirations.

This is for anyone who’s curious about rethinking their thinking or unleashing the extraordinary potential of the human mind.

Science world luminary John Brockman assembles twenty-five of the most important scientific minds, people who have been thinking about the field artificial intelligence for most of their careers, for an unparalleled round-table examination about mind, thinking, intelligence and what it means to be human. "Artificial intelligence is today's story--the story behind all other stories. It is the Second Coming and the Apocalypse at the same time: Good AI versus evil AI." --John Brockman More than sixty years ago, mathematician-philosopher Norbert Wiener published a book on the place of machines in society that ended with a warning: "we shall never receive the right answers to our questions unless we ask the right questions.... The hour is very late, and the choice of good and evil knocks at our door." In the wake of advances in unsupervised, self-improving machine learning, a small but influential community of thinkers is considering Wiener's words again. In Possible Minds, John Brockman gathers their disparate visions of where AI might be taking us. The fruit of the long history of Brockman's profound engagement with the most important scientific minds who have been thinking about AI--from Alison Gopnik and David Deutsch to Frank Wilczek and Stephen Wolfram--Possible Minds is an ideal introduction to the landscape of crucial issues AI presents. The collision between opposing perspectives is salutary and exhilarating; some of these figures, such as computer scientist Stuart Russell, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, and physicist Max Tegmark, are deeply concerned with the threat of AI, including the existential one, while others, notably robotics entrepreneur Rodney Brooks, philosopher Daniel Dennett, and bestselling author Steven Pinker, have a very different view. Serious, searching and authoritative, Possible Minds lays out the intellectual landscape of one of the most important topics of our time.