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: benson.thomas341@rediffmail.com

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!