Several weeks ago, Mrs. Bird, Miss Hancock and I were fortunate to attend the annual conference of the National Association of Laboratory Schools in New York City.  The conference was hosted by the Bank Street College School for Children and The School at Columbia University.  We had the opportunity to share our perspectives on “Scaffolding Development via Embedded Structure and Thematic Content” with educators from the US, Canada, and Scotland.  We were inspired by touring both of the host schools, hearing presentations by diverse educators, and conversing with colleagues at poster sessions and receptions.  In addition, we agreed that our thinking was most challenged by two of the keynote speakers.  Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia and Director of the UN Millennium Project, spoke about “Millennium Development Goals”, and Howard Gardner, professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education, spoke about “Five Minds for the Future”.  Taken together, these internationally influential leaders stressed an important shift in emphasis for parents and educators in the current millennium.

Sachs challenged us to start as early as possible to help our children understand the complexities of living on a very crowded planet.  He emphasized the importance of capitalizing on young children’s curiosity and openness to foster an understanding of global interconnectedness, a sense of space and geography, and basic contrasts among cultures, particularly with regard to their economies and vulnerabilities.  Even young children can begin to participate in practical humanitarian efforts to end extreme poverty by ensuring that all children and families have access to safe water, adequate nutrition, basic health care, etc.  By beginning now to help children broaden their interest in fairness and reciprocity to include multiple global perspectives on the distribution of the world’s resources, we may help to raise a generation of leaders who will find creative approaches to tackling the growing geopolitical challenges.  Finally, by encouraging children to view the whole world as our neighborhood and to consider the broad environmental impact of their actions, we can develop global citizens who value sustainable lifestyles that will preserve the environment for future generations.

Gardner promoted emphasis on developing five aspects of children’s minds: the disciplined mind, the synthetic mind, the creating mind, the respectful mind, and the ethical mind.  According to Gardner, disciplined minds go beyond memorizing lists of facts in science, math, art, history, etc. to understanding the unique styles of disciplinary thinking in each area so that they can apply them broadly.  Minds that synthesize well can effectively determine where to focus vs. what to ignore, can integrate information so that it makes sense, and can translate their understanding into a form that can be shared with others.  With a foundation in the disciplines and habits of synthesis that have been the focus of many existing educational programs, the creating mind goes further to develop something new, sometimes something that affects other people significantly.  The respectful mind begins with empathy and altruism and grows to both recognize and understand differences in a way that enables effective interaction and collaboration.  The ethical mind then develops more abstract understanding of people’s roles and responsibilities as members of families, workers in professions, and citizens of a country and the world.  Such understanding underlies a myriad of choices regarding individual and collective behavior, all of which would contribute to meeting the objectives Sachs proposed.

Interestingly, many of the Children’s School developmental goals already relate directly to Sachs’ and Gardner’s emphases.  We could, however, improve by becoming more involved in the university’s environmental efforts and focusing more intentionally on global perspectives.  We invite you to think with us about these issues as we plan for next year’s curriculum and special projects.  Feel free to offer ideas and assistance so that we can work together to best facilitate our children’s development.