The 5 Minds For The Future

Its 13th of March. It’s my elder son’s 21st birthday today.

I almost had this instinct to write 21 lessons that I learnt in my life, as a tribute to my son who makes me so proud. I am also certain that my son would be embarrassed if I went ahead with this plan 🙂 .

As I was thinking about what subject to write about today, a spark of memory reminded me of a book that I read almost 7 or 8 years back titled “5 minds for the future” written by Howard Gardner. 

We are in the Knowledge era where data is getting produced exponentially and the influence of the AI and technology is overwhelming. The old ways of education are becoming redundant. For one to be productive, society is demanding new ways learning and thinking.

In this book the author details 5 types of cognitive abilities that will be sought and will command a premium in the years ahead.

• The Disciplined Mind –Here the individual would need a scholarly approach to attain some mastery of at least one domain. Mastery requires commitment to work steadily and develop capability and skill. In the absence of mastery of at least one discipline the  individual is likely to march to someone else’s tune.

• The Synthesizing Mind – Here the person takes information from disparate sources, understands and evaluates that information objectively and puts it together in ways that makes coherent sense to people around. The capacity to synthesise becomes very crucial as information and data continues to mount at dizzying rates.

• The Creating Mind – Building on the traits of discipline and synthesis, the creating mind puts forth new ideas, comes with new ways of thinking to deliver solutions to different types of problems that society is dealing with.

• The Respectful Mind –The world is becoming increasingly diverse, we will need people who respect and value those who are different from themselves. We are in an interlinked world, intolerance and disrespect are behaviours that will not work for anyone.

• The Ethical Mind – We will need people who can think beyond their own self-interest and choose to act in ways that improve the quality of life and living. One needs to be a global citizen looking beyond individual boundaries.

The first 3 traits are cognitive in nature while the last 2 are relationship oriented.

This is a small message I want to share with my son and others his age as they chart their destiny.

To my son Advaith- You are in a great place. You represent a nice blend of these 5 cognitive traits. You are a mind for the future !! Happy Birthday !!