Training the mind
Media
Part of Panorama
- Title
- Training the mind
- Creator
- Gallup, George
- Language
- English
- Year
- 1968
- Subject
- Education.
- Intellectual development.
- Rights
-
- Abstract
- From The Miracle Ahead (1964)
- Fulltext
- THE PHILIPPINE MAGAZINE OF GOOD READING Entered as second class mail matter at the Manila Post Office on Dec. 7, 1955 Vol. XX MANILA, PHILIPPINES No. 8 TRAINING THE MIND Present educational systems do not encourage in stu dents a conception of education as a lifelong process. Nor is any system of public education notably successful in giving a substantial number of students a mastery of the major fields of knowledge or the essential communication skills. These are serious shortcomings; but by far the most important defect is the failure to develop to any great extent the intellectual capacities of students. Amazingly little effort is made by the educational systems of Western nations to set the mind of the student in motion — to provide him with the kind of education that will enable him to cope with new situations as they arise, help him to sharpen his critical judgments, develop more fully his creative talents, and show him how to go about producing new and better solutions to his own and society’s problems. Ironically we are now witnessing an effort on the part of some of our most highly trained experts to explore fully the potentialities of the newest computers while the poten tialities of the human brain — a far greater instrument — go unheralded and largely unexplored • • • It will always be important for students to know the great ideas, the great works, and the great events in the history of man. Nevertheless, this is not the only or even the primary objective. It is equally certain that the direct training of the mind itself must assume prime importance. — By George Gallup, from The Miracle Ahead (1964).