Discussion+Guide

=A Whole New Mind - Discussion Guide for Educators=

From Dan Pink:

1. Does your classroom, school or school system promote L- or R- directed thinking? How? What is the proper balance? 2. How innate are the six abilities Pink talks about? Can these abilities be taught or strengthened in school? How? 3. What role does design have in your classroom or school? Do your students play any role in the actual design of their learning experience? Can it be incorporated into the curriculum in areas other than art class? How? 4. Is storytelling part of your curriculum? If not, should it be? How? 5. Can you teach empathy? Should you teach empathy? How? 6. Do you agree with what Pink argues about the importance of play for learning and creating? What can you do to include more play in your teaching and your students’ learning? 7. Are your students learning to be symphonic thinkers? If so, how can we teach this capacity? Does the traditional means of organizing teaching by discipline interfere with students’ and teachers’ ability to think symphonically? 8. What do you think of the Charter High School for Art and Design (CHAD)? How could CHAD be used more broadly as a model for schooling? What are its strengths? Weaknesses? 9. Do you agree with Pink that videogames are important for developing skills like problem solving, visual perception and symphonic thinking? 10. How is Pink’s notion of “meaning” a part of your teaching? Should we even broach this subject in a secular classroom? If so, how? 11. Pink talks about psychological androgyny and aligns R-directed thinking with one’s feminine side. Do you agree? What do you observe in your own classroom or building? 12. How have your students been impacted by the SAT-ocracy and the culture of standardized testing that Pink describes? How has your teaching been impacted by these tests? Do these tests make it more difficult to have a whole-minded approach to teaching and learning? 13. What do you think of the Rainbow Project, the alternative SAT created by Yale Professor Robert Sternberg? 14. Is your school ready to embrace Pink’s theories about R-directed thinking in the Conceptual Age? What about society as a whole? What are the consequences for students and educators if we do not? 15. What R-directed skills do you use in your work? Which of the six senses is a priority for teachers to develop? Why? 16. Which of the portfolio exercises from the book would you recommend for other educators? Which ones would you use with students? 17. How, if at all, should teacher training change in light of these ideas? 18. How do you imagine educators in Asia or other countries might react to the ideas presented in this book? 19. After reading A WHOLE NEW MIND, what is one change you would make in your classroom, school or school district? What challenges would you face in implementing this change? How would you plan to overcome those challenges? 20. What in the book made you laugh? What made you angry?