Five Minds for the Future

C H A P T E R 2

The Disciplined Mind

THE MOST IMPORTANT scientific discovery about learning in recent years comes from cognitive researchers who have examined student understanding. In a typical paradigm, a secondary-school or college student is asked to elucidate a discovery or phenomenon with which she is not familiar but which lends itself to explanation in terms of a concept or theory that has been already studied. The results are surprising, consistent, and disheartening. Most students, including those who attend our best schools and receive the highest grades, are not able to explain the phenomenon about which they are being questioned. Even more alarmingly, many give precisely the same answer as those who have never taken the relevant ...