To be able to think out of box, you should first have a box

Just when I thought the term “thinking out of the box” was the coolest thing since the other side of the pillow, I get hit with this awesome quote. Wow. I absolutely did not see that coming.

Howard Gardner’s article was a very interesting read. It kind of had a “self-help” book feel to it because the minds he was talking about could very well be pointers on how we can help ourselves be better and more productive persons. By telling us of these five minds, he basically gave us a check list of the things could do.

I think he was trying to point out that we could have a disciplined, synthesizing, creative, respectful, and ethical mind.

The Disciplined Mind

I think one of the best ways to concretely develop the disciplined mind is spend time with kids and try to figure out what are the things that really excite them. In his article Howard Gardner said that he was playing with the three uses of the term discipline. So I think it is best to come up with three ways to exercise and develop the disciplined mind.

For the first definition of discipline, Gardner said it was about muscle-memory, training your body to memorize whatever it is that you’re doing so that the activity feels like second nature, if you practice hard enough, being good at what you do could be as easy as breathing. How can we develop this? I think it should be instilled in the mind of young kids that practice indeed makes perfect. Parents should support the kid in whatever it is that interests him/her. Say, your kid likes basketball. You can get him into programs where he could train with other kids. Be supportive of him by driving him to practice sessions and watching his games. Being at practice a few times a week and seeing results could definitely help kids feel that discipline leads somewhere, and if they adopt this for the other aspects of their lives, their disciplined minds can be developed.

The second and third definitions are kind of similar. One is for the kid to be good at a certain discipline and the other is to master a type of job. One of the ways to develop this is by keen observation of the child. Once observation is done, then schools can offer classes/activities that would further help the child in whatever it is that he/she is interested in. We actually did something like this in high school. We would take these tests and the guidance department would try to figure out if we fit better in the physical science, medical science, or business tracks. I know the three choices are not comprehensive but at least we had sort of a specialized training in the fields that we were ore comfortable in. Of course we all took science, math and English classes, we were just given two or three classes that differed from each other.


The Synthesizing Mind

The best way to develop a synthesizing mind is first know what the hell synthesizing means. In this age of modern technology and infinite sources of information, training kids to discern what are good sources from bad ones could be a start to developing the synthesizing mind.

The Creative Mind

Developing the creative mind is tricky. I guess I can borrow from my example from the disciplined mind part. Because there are a billion things a person can be creative at, it is of great importance that a person’s interests are defined as early as possible. If this happens, the person will have more time learning about things that the person wants to learn about and could therefore be capable of doing something creative because of his vast knowledge in that field. As said in the article, it takes at least ten years to master something and only then can you be capable of coming up with something creative.

I think another way of developing the creative mind is by letting it make mistakes. In today’s world, parents often suffer from the mean-world syndrome. They try to hold their kids too tightly because of they fear that something bad could happen to them. I’m not saying to leave your kids alone in the street or anything like that, what I’m saying is that kids should be allowed to explore, see the world with their own eyes without guardians force-feeding them what they want them to see.

The Respectful Mind

I think due to the deep state of division that the world has been in for so long, it will be hard to develop the respectful mind. However, the fact that communication today is a lot easier that it was before, this could be of great help.

The respectful mind needs to be introduced to a lot of different cultures and the time to understand them. I think one of the best ways to concretely develop the respectful mind is to read a lot about other people. Traveling could also be one concrete method of developing the respecting mind because meeting people from different walks of life would surely widen the horizon of anybody. I also think meeting more people could help the respectful mind to be more open about the beliefs and practices of other people. You do not have to travel the whole world in able to say you respect the traditions of Earth’s inhabitants. I think going to a few places and meeting a few different people is already enough to give the respectful mind the idea that there are different ways that people do things. I also think you cannot respect what you cannot understand so traveling would surely help.

The Ethical Mind

Training people to look at their own selves before gazing towards others could be a good point of entry in developing the ethical mind. Training them to be mindful of their media consumption patterns and how it leads to them objectifying other people should also be done.

Parent should also bring their kids to community-building activities. If a kid grows up being around his parents who make it a point to help take care of old people by volunteering in nursing homes, then the kid could grow up sensitive about the needs of other people and strong enough to do something about it.