March 17, 2009 in Biology | 11 comments | Post a comment E-mail   |   Print   |   Text Size    Building the 21st-Century Mind A professor of cognition and education reveals the five minds you need for success, how to make better decisions, and why ethics are critical.

Howard Gardner is a professor of cognition and education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He’s also the author of over 20 books and several hundred scholarly articles. Gardner is probably best known in educational circles for his theory of multiple intelligences, which is a critique of the notion that there exists but a single human intelligence that can be assessed by standard psychometric instruments. His most recent book, Five Minds for the Future, offers some advice for policy-makers on how to do a better job of preparing students for the 21st century. Mind Matters editor Jonah Lehrer chats with Gardner about his new book, the possibility of teaching ethics and how his concept of multiple intelligences has changed over time.