Opening Minds Howard Gardner
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To find out more about Creative Commons licences go to www.creativecommons.org Demos Quarterly Issue 1/Winter 1993 Demos Quarterly is published by Demos 9 Bridewell Place London EC4V 6AP Telephone: 071 353 4479 Facsimile: 071 353 4481 © Demos 1993 All rights reserved Editorial team: Geoff Mulgan Martin Bartle Liz Bailey Karen Poley Emily Russell Duncan McKechnie Laura Wilkinson Printed in Great Britain by East End Offset, London E3 3LT Design and art direction: EstersonLackersteen Special thanks to: Adrian Taylor, VNU Publications Mwiza Munthali, TransAfrica Forum Commonwealth Party Mark Perryman Simon Esterson Contents Editorial vii Howard Gardner FEATURES Opening minds 1 Howard Gardner Theory into Practice: five examples Education 2000 13 The Phoenix Centre 17 Optimum Schooling 19 The Open School 20 Education Extra 22 Learning Right from Wrong 25 Amitai Etzioni REGULARS UK Politics Reinventing Accountability 41 John Stewart Demos/Winter 1993 Big Ideas – Selling Bad Things in a Good Society 57 Tim Pendry Archives Throwing Bread on the Waters 61 Andrew Carey 1963 – “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time” 65 Global Spotlight: Trans Africa – America’s 69 First Black Think-Tank Media Watch 71 Demos Forum 75 NEWS Projects Report – The Seven Million Project 81 Projects Report – Voluntary, Charitable and 85 Not For Profit Projects Report – Constitutions: What Have we 87 Learned in 200 years? Projects Report – The Future of the Public Park 91 Projects Report – The Millennium Project 93 vi Demos Editorial Geoff Mulgan This is the first Demos Quarterly. It is neither an academic journal nor a political magazine. Instead it is designed to be a serious, lively and acces- sible forum for the leading edge of social, economic and political ideas, both from the UK and around the world. Six months after Demos’ launch, and with a climate of far greater openness to ideas across the political spectrum than anyone can remember, the time seemed propi- tious. For although at the time of the launch many criticised us for having exaggerated the pace of political change, and for being too dismissive of the viability of existing institutions, now, if anything, it looks as if our assessment may have been over cautious. The political systems of both Italy and Japan are in turmoil. Confidence in the parties and parliament here has fallen even further. And all over the world a great unravelling seems to be underway. Increasingly people are talking in terms of an historic shift towards new ideas, frameworks and institutions.As yet little of what will replace the old forms is clearly visible. But with societies and economies ever more oriented to knowledge and understanding, questions of learning seem destined to be at the top of the emerging agenda. This is why we have chosen to focus this issue on Howard Gardner’s work. Gardner’s willingness to mix theory, practice and advocacy gives his ideas a freshness and relevance which has been missing from the British educational debate. Demos vii Demos/Winter 1993 But his ideas also throw surprising light on the larger question of political failure. In the preface to the latest edition of his book ‘Frames of Mind’,Gardner points out that: ‘we have a plentiful supply of men and women who can supply leadership for scholarly disciplines, for the arts, business and other technical areas. But we desperately lack leadership for the wider society: people who are able to speak and be heard across interest groups and separate areas of technical expertise and address the broad concerns of society and even of humanity as a whole. I … have identified one reason for this apparent asynchrony. To provide leadership in a domain that highlights a certain intelligence the principal requirement is that a person excels in that intelligence. In the wider society however a would-be leader must be able to create a story about that society, a persuasive narrative that accounts for his or her place within it and one that can link individuals of different intelligences, domains and allegiances in a more incorporative enterprise…’ At present no one is doing that. Our politicians are too narrow in their experiences and concerns, as are most of our business leaders, writers and managers. Our prime focus in this issue is with learning, and with the many projects which are trying to put Gardner’s ideas into practice. But we have also highlighted other themes which will be central to Demos’ work in the years ahead. John Stewart, the UK’s leading authority on local government, pro- vides a comprehensive rebuttal of the UK government’s recent argu- ments on local accountability. Amitai Etzioni explains how morals and values can be learned. Our section of subscriber ideas includes Tim Pendry’s innovative solution for reconciling public moralities and indi- vidual freedom in retailing. And our section on Demos projects viii Demos Editorial includes Helen Wilkinson’s exposition of the argument behind the ‘Seven Million Project’ on the politics of younger women. In the year ahead we plan more themed issues of the Quarterly: on unemployment, the future of democracy and the politics of technol- ogy and science. In the meantime we welcome any feedback on the topics you think we should be addressing, and on the contents and style of what has already been published. Anyone reading this issue will discover that Demos has been very active during its first six months. we have published four booklets each of which has helped to shift the debate. Seminars and events have been held on everything from creative cities and auditing to the future of the British national identity. Our ideas have rapidly found an audience: in particular the tax proposals have been quickly taken up by both oppsition parties as well as generating great interest within govern- ment. Other initiatives include the Millennium Project (which makes Demos the first think-tank in Europe to use computer conferencing), a major lecture series in 1994 and several large-scale research projects. But it will also be immediately clear that our primary concern is not with the level of the PSBR or the pound, but rather with the fundamen- tal principles that lie behind everyday policies. This is the great vacuum in Western public life today – and it is to these fundamentals, and to the positive ideas that come from rethinking them with clarity – that we will be devoting our energies. Demos ix Opening minds Howard Gardner Over the last ten years the United States, like the UK, has been through two waves of concern about education.