ruminations on education lee chu keong. parents seek oxygen therapy to boost kids’ grades (oct 3,...
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Ruminations on Education
Lee Chu Keong
Parents seek oxygen therapy to boost kids’ grades (Oct 3, 2011)
Buy “oxygen concentrators”
Free-standing machines (costing more than $1,000)
which pump out pure oxygen
Used to help people focus better on their work
Usually bought by executives and athletes
Woman wants divorce after son’s grades dip (Oct 9, 2011)
Felt that her husband was a “negative influence” on their
son
Felt very unhappy that her husband often brought their
son for outings, and believed that this was affecting her
son’s studies
Requested that her son’s psychiatrist write a letter
stating that her husband was a “negative influence” on
her son, so that she could divorce him
Question
Gardner, H. (2008). Five minds for the future.
Boston: Harvard Business Press.
What are the kinds of minds that people will need if
they are to thrive in the world in the eras to come?
What are the kinds of minds that librarians will
need if they are to thrive in the world in the eras to
come?
Question
What are the kinds of minds that people will need if
they are to thrive in the world in the eras to come?
mental dispositions
mental dispositions
The Idea
Having identified these minds (or mental
dispositions), one can then start cultivating and
nurturing them.
The Minds
A pentad of mental dispositions
The disciplined mind
The synthesising mind
The creating mind
The respectful mind
The ethical mind
The Minds
A pentad of mental dispositions
The disciplined mind cognitive
The synthesising mind cognitive
The creating mind cognitive
The respectful mind relational
The ethical mind relational
The Minds
A triad of cognitive mental dispositions
The disciplined mind
The synthesising mind
The creating mind
Synthesis and creation needs a
baseline of literacy and discipline
The Disciplined Mind
In the future, individuals who wish to thrive will need to
be experts in at least one area they will need a
discipline
Without at least one discipline under his belt, the
individual is destined to march to someone else’s tune
Individuals without one or more disciplines will not be
able to succeed at any demanding workplace and will be
restricted to menial tasks
The Meaning of Discipline
A discipline is a distinctive way of looking at the world
The disciplined mind has mastered at least one way of
thinking a distinctive mode of cognition that
characterises a specific scholarly discipline, craft or
profession
It takes up to ten years to master a discipline
It is the goal of schools to eradicate erroneous or
unproductive ways of thinking, and to put in their stead
the ways of thinking and doing that mark the disciplined
professional (p. 26)
MSc (Information Studies) at NTU
School’s have very little time in which to achieve this!
Librarians will have to do much of this themselves!
390h𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠÷8h𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑑𝑎𝑦
50𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠
(13𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑘𝑠×3 h𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑘 )×10𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑠=390h𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠
The Hard Questions
What is your discipline?
What are the bodies of knowledge and the key
procedures you have to master to be considered an
expert in your area?
Are you training to perfect your craft?
Are you continually honing your skills?
Are you marching to someone else’s tune/beat?
Discipline vs Subject Matter
Differentiate discipline from subject matter
Discipline refers to the deep understanding about a topic
that allows a person to think about it in a variety of ways
There is a great difference between:
Genuine, deep understanding – acquisition and application
of dynamic knowledge
Superficial understanding – regurgitation of inert data
Clues lie in the response
The Response
Nice!
Nice! I feel that the tempo …
interpretation …orchestration …
melodic structure …harmonic progression …
The Response [Example 2]
Use LDOCE or OALD.
Can you please tell me what a “Dear John” is.
This is a librarian?
Can you please tell me what a “Dear John” is.
That’s a word related to warfare. Let’s refer to
Ammer’s Fighting Words.
Wow, I’ve come to the right person!
When the cardboard is jerked quickly, the coin will fall into the glass. Why?
The Response
If the response is essentially indistinguishable from those of
individuals who have never studied the designated topics
if, indeed, the way that they approach the problem
demonstrates little or not disciplinary method, we must then
face the uncomfortable possibility that factual knowledge
may have increased without a correlative increase in
disciplinary sophistication.
Disciplinary Method
The absence of disciplinary thinking matters shorn of
these sophisticated ways of thinking, individuals remain
essentially unschooled no different, indeed, from
uneducated individuals.
A Problem At Work
You’ve been hired by a company that deals in antiques.
Given your qualification (Master of Science (Information
Studies)), and work experience as a librarian, you have
been asked to develop a classification scheme for the
antiques that the company deals in.
How would you approach this problem?
¤ What principles should guide you in the construction
of your classification scheme?
¤ What factors should you consider?
General Classification Theory
Everything, object, etc., has to have a distinct and
unambiguous description of its unique qualities
Principles involving likeness and distinctness must be
used in creating classes
Hierarchies and other relational methods are necessary
in order to group fundamental characteristics and to
identify fundamental differences clearly
The final system should appear as a logical progression
from general to particular
Factors to Consider
Type of notation
Expressiveness
Degree to which mnemonics are supported
Hospitality
Brevity
Consistency
Simplicity
Policy: Frequency and modality of updates
Important Questions
Did you use a disciplinary approach?
Did your problem solving process embody disciplinary
thinking?
Did you display disciplinary sophistication?
Did it differ from Peter’s solution? [Assume Peter does
not have an MSc (IS)]
Did your response differ from that of Peter?
Steps to Develop a Disciplined Mind
Identify truly important topics or concepts within the
discipline
Spend a significant amount of time on the topic
Approach the topic in a number of ways (use several
lenses)
Set up “performances of understanding” a culminating
masterpiece (a public lecture once a year on the topic in
which you are the expert?)
Discipline in Another Sense
The acquisition of habits that allows one to make steady
and unending progress in the mastery of a skill, craft, or
body of knowledge
A deeply internalised form of discipline is needed here
Realises that given the accumulation of new knowledge
and methods, one must become a lifelong student
Enjoys and has become passionate about the process of
learning about the world
Preface to the Paperback Edition
In a world that shows no sign of slowing down, no individual
can rest on his or her laurels. The future belongs to those
organisations, as well as those individuals, that have made
an active, lifelong commitment to learn.
Those individuals who can continue to learn and who can
help preserve a zest for learning in organisations are at a
special premium going forward.
Nguyen Thai Vu
Synthesising & Creating Minds
Parallels abound between the synthesising
and creating minds (e.g., they both benefit
from a multiplicity of perspectives)
No sharp line that separates them clearly
exist
The Salient Difference
The synthesiser’s goal is to place what has already been
established in as useful and illuminating a form as
possible
The creator’s goal is to extend knowledge, to ruffle the
contours of a genre, to guide a set of practices along
new and hitherto unanticipated directions
The Synthesising Mind …
An ability to knit together information from discrete or
disparate sources into a coherent whole
An ability to collate the most important knowledge
relating to an area of concern
An ability to synergistically amalgamate different
perspectives on an issue
Types of synthesis narratives; taxonomies; complex
concepts; rules and aphorisms; powerful metaphors,
images and themes; embodiments without words;
theories; metatheory
The Creating Mind
Almost every task that can be routinised will be, sooner
or later
To realise creativity, three elements are needed
The individual who has mastered a discipline and is
steadily issuing variations in it
The cultural domain in which an individual is working, with
its models, prescriptions and proscriptions
The social field – those individuals and institutions that
provide access to relevant educational experiences and
that pass judgment on the merit of the creation
Question: Has the domain in which you operate been
significantly altered by your contribution? Does your
contribution break new ground?
Because creators are bold and imaginative, they fail
frequently and dramatically
Are instructive cul-de-sacs allowed? Are productive
mistakes tolerated? Can you exercise your imagination?
Originality or conventionality preferred?
Are deviants tolerated?
Minds Missed Out by Gardner
The Financial Mind …
The Read-between-the-lines Mind …
The Streetsmart Mind …
The Failure-is-part-of-life Mind …
The Financial Mind
Credit card overspending
accounts for about half of
bankruptcy cases in 2009
The problem:
$2,000 pay, but $5,000 lifestyle
The solution:
$2,000 pay, and $1,200 lifestyle
The Read-between-the-lines Mind …FROM THE DESK OF CHIEF AUDITORINTERNATIONAL AUDITING DEPARTMENTOFFSHORE CREDIT COMMISSIONEMAIL ADDRESS: [email protected]
RE: YOUR OUTSTANDING REMITTANCE AMOUNT DISCOVERED
I AM WRITING TO YOU IN A TOP CONFIDENTIAL LEVEL AS I MADE AN ASTONISHING DISCOVERY DURING THE COURSE OF MY AUDITING FOR THE JUST CONCLUDED FISCAL YEAR.
A WHOPPING SUM THAT RUNS INTO MILLIONS OF UNITED STATES DOLLARS WAS UNCOVERED BY ME WITH YOUR NAME AS THE MAIN BENEFICIARY. THIS FUND WAS ORIGINALLY TRANSFERRED TO THIS OFFICE BY YOUR PARTNERS AFTER WHICH THE OPTED FOR PAYMENT IN A DIFFERENT LOCATION. UNFORTUNATELY THE FUND WAS RETURNED HERE IN OUR OFFICE AS THE SAFEST VENUE FOR DISBURSEMENT. EVER SINCE THEN NOBODY HAS COME FOR THE CLAIM.
The problem:
Believing that something-for-nothing exist!
The solution:
Delete the email
The Streetsmart Mind …
An invitation to buy a chemical to remove the black ink
on some ‘real money’, followed by a demonstration
The problem:
Believing that out of six billion people in
the world, you are specially chosen to
receive this special invitation
The solution:
Believing that, “If it sounds too
good to be true, it probably is!”
The Failure-is-part-of-life Mind …
A*Star scholar found dead
at bottom of block
The problem:
Insufficient exposure to setbacks in life!
The solution:
Some exposure to setbacks,
if possible, early in life!
Thank You!