The Integrative Mind

Transformative Education For a World On Fire

By (author) Tobin Hart

Not available to order

Publication date:

25 June 2014

Length of book:

140 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781475807028

In a world on fire with unprecedented possibility as well as peril, what kind of mind is needed in order to thrive and survive? How can education help develop human potential to be a match for this reality?

The Integrative Mind radically updates the vision that we hold for education, the pedagogy that can help us achieve it, and the human consciousness that underlies it all. Consciousness and culture has been thrown out of balance by the neglect of key ways of meeting the world. The solution at the edge of this new episteme is not so much about what we know but instead about how we know.

With practical applications and contemporary research, Tobin Hart shows that the way into the future requires a recalibration of mind. Hart explores five “missing minds”: contemplative, empathic, beautiful, embodied, and imaginative. These help open the aperture of consciousness enabling us to move, as Thomas Berry said, from seeing the world as a collection of objects to experiencing it as a communion of subjects. The result is an essential deepening of understanding and our humanity.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The readability, clarity, and substance are qualities that will be appreciated by any reader of education. Tobin Hart is a voice that needs to be heard. Not only does he name the problem and articulate the essential questions confronting American education today, but he goes on to frame the conversation for a new vision of education. His "five minds" are eminently practical with examples and applications that every educator can put into practice. This is essential reading - possibly the best book on education I've read in a long time.