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Gardner to Focus on “The True, the Beautiful, and the Good” in MoMA Lecture Series

By Jill Anderson
11/18/2008 3:34 PM
6 Comments

Professor Howard Gardner will begin a unique lecture series at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) next week. The lectures entitled “The True, the Beautiful, and the Good: Reconsiderations in a Postmodern, Digital Era” will explore concepts and problems surrounding truth, beauty, and goodness in today’s age of rapid technological advancement.

“I have long thought that education should help us to think clearly about the true, the beautiful, and the good and how to contribute to a world which exhibits those virtues,” Gardner says, noting his 1999 book, The Disciplined Mind, which focused on how to teach these topics. “The book was written naively – I simply accepted the terms of truth and falseness, beauty and ugliness, and goodness and evil as given. But as an observer of the academy, I know that these terms are much contested, particularly in postmodern and deconstructivist terminology, and educators cannot simply ignore these critiques.”

Part of Gardner’s current research involves how the new digital media are affecting young people’s cognitive capacities, dispositions, and ethical senses. In this three-part lecture series, Gardner will argue that it is far more complex, but still possible, to approach truth, beauty, and goodness in a digital era, but the pursuit is anything but automatic.

“What is truth in an era of blogging and Wikis? What is beauty, when anyone can experiment endlessly with any display? How do the new media affect our senses of privacy, authorship, membership in a community? These are some of the issues that will arise in the lectures and, I hope, I’ll provide some convincing answers as well,” he says.

Following each lecture, Gardner will be joined for a discussion by fellow scholars. They include Peter Galison, Pellegrino University Professor in the History of Science and Physics, Harvard University on November 25; Paola Antonelli, senior curator, Department of Architecture and Design, MoMA on December 2; and Antonio Damasio, David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience, and director, Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California on December 9.

A longtime fan of the MoMA, Gardner served on the museum’s education committee for 20 years and is currently on the board of trustees. Gardner’s lectures will incorporate hundreds of slides and music to illustrate the topic, and notes that the subject is important for everyone to consider today.

“It’s easier to be naïve or simple-minded, but as a scholar and an educator and a parent and a citizen, I don’t feel that we can or should sweep these questions under the rug,” he says. “Only if we look squarely at the threats to truth, beauty, and goodness, posed by post modern critiques and by the potentials both positive and negative of the new digital media can we arrive at clear thinking and warranted conclusions. And only then will we be in a position to help young people and indeed interested people of all ages to think cogently about these vital virtues and their status today and going forward.”

For more information, visit: http://www.moma.org/calendar/events.php?id=10171&ref=calendar

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  • Dallas Jackson, EdD

    This lead into Howard Gardner’s current research is very interesting to me. As I prepare my courses in educational leadership (doctoral level) I find myself delving into technology, communication and the issue of ethics. I am also a public school principal and recent attendee of the National Institute of Urban School Leaders at HGSE. In my current practice I am launching 21st century learning from an instructional leadership perspective to enrich the tech-rich pedagogy we now expose our students to. I hope this lecture series becomes available in some form of media that we can locate from the web or purchase. I have my faculty and Doctoral students well versed on multiple intelligences and think Dr. Gardner’s latest work will help me and the leaders in my sphere of influence move from understanding learning styles to global learning environments and its impact on 21st century learners.

  • Mars Caulton, educator/artist

    This is very exciting, and brave — daring to detail what beauty, truth and goodness really mean in the same breath as addressing what the current generations of youth are learning, through the new rules of the world as well as the current state of education. A child development professor told me a few years ago that “even Gardner is bored with MI,” that he’s “moved on” to new issues. Personally, I see Gardner’s vision of learning + living in the REAL WORLD as reaching out broader with every brush stroke. He’s just braver than those afraid to tie it all together. This is an exceptional direction he is taking, and I hope there is a way that long distance folks like myself can learn from this series at MoMA. Peace.

  • Shana Chambers

    I agree…the concept of aesthetics and how the digital, computerized age are effecting the roots of aesthetic development will be the focus of my graduate studies..or at least part of it. I wonder if communities which have been on the “low end” of the technological “divide” have experienced the change in their concepts of beauty? If a community has not had excessive exposure to computerized imagery, is their concept of aesthetics and beauty unaffected by the digital age? How has culture and socio-economics effected beauty and its manifestation in the digital age….I am very interested in exploring aesthetic development in children from various communities. Kudos to Mr. Gardner for his work with museums….rambling…hope this is relevant to the strand of conversation.

  • Wendy O’Brien

    This does indeed sound exciting. Any word on whether the lectures will be made available to the broader public either via video or in book form?

  • ken mcphaul

    Great idea

  • Kenneth Mcphaul

    Effective Praise Ineffective Praise
    1. Is delivered contingently upon student
    performance of desirable behaviors or
    genuine accomplishment 1. Is delivered randomly and indiscriminately without specific attention to genuine accomplishment
    2. Specifies the praiseworthy aspects of the student’s accomplishments 2. Is general or global, not specifying the success.
    3. Is expressed sincerely, showing spontaneity, variety and other non-verbal signs of credibility. 3. Is expressed blandly without feeling or animation, and relying on stock, perfunctory phrases.
    4. Is given for genuine effort, progress, or accomplishment, which are judged according to standards appropriate to individuals. 4. Is given based on comparisons with others and without regard to the effort expended or significance of the accomplishment of an individual.
    5. Provides information to students about their competence or the value of their accomplishments. 5. Provides no meaningful information to the students about their accomplishments.
    6. Helps students to better appreciate their thinking, problem-solving and performance. 6. Orients students toward comparing themselves with others.
    7. Attributes student success to effort and ability, implying that similar successes can be expected in the future. 7. Attributes student success to ability alone or to external factors such as luck or easy task.
    8. Encourages students to appreciate their accomplishments for the effort they expend and their personal gratification. 8. Encourages students to succeed for external reasons — to please the teacher, win a competition or reward, etc.

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