The Pursuit of Wisdom and the Future of Education (original) (raw)

Teaching for Wisdom: An Approach to a Flourishing Life

The ancient construct of Wisdom has been found to contribute to optimal human development across various researches in the past decade. Our education system has overemphasized constructs like intelligence and logical reasoning. Fortunately, the focus on emotional intelligence has begun recently, as can be seen in a flood of research articles emphasizing the need for E.Q. This article attempts to provide a rationale for why educating for wisdom is as important as I.Q and E.Q in schools. Secondly, based on the review of literature, the article identifies common elements of wisdom across various definitions, which can be extracted and implemented through wisdom programmes in schools. Thirdly, it suggests certain procedures through which wisdom can be imbibed in children. Development of wisdom is expected to have a worthwhile effect on the mental well being of children and the future growth of society. Keywords: Wisdom, Schools, Teaching, Optimal development

The University of Wisdom – Exploring the role of wisdom for secondary and tertiary education

2014

We live in an age of measurement and accountability. Emphasis is given to supposedly easily assessable skills, such as reading, writing and maths. In such an environment some humanistic aspects of education seem to get lost in the wider scheme of politics, policies and assessments. Among these are concepts such as Bildung, spirituality and wisdom. This article will explore the notion of wisdom in relation to other terms of educational relevance, such as Bildung, knowledge, character, spirituality and practical wisdom. Further, Eastern and Western philosophical approaches to the concept of wisdom will be taken into account in an attempt to comprehensively explore its meaning and dimensions. In this context, philosophers like Lauxmann (2004), Schwartz & Sharpe (2010), de Mello (1992), Maxwell (2012), Lau (2009), Tucker (2003), Laozi (n.d./1993) and others will be drawn on. The role of wisdom in and for education will be discussed in light of a review of possible aims and ends in educa...

A pathway for wisdom-focused education

Journal of Moral Education, 2018

Interest in the topic of wisdom-focused education has so far not resulted in empirically validated programs for teaching wisdom. To start filling this void, we explore the emerging empirical evidence concerning the fundamental elements required for understanding how one can foster wisdom, with a particular focus on wise reasoning. We define wise reasoning through a combination of intellectual humility, recognition of world in flux/change, openmindedness to diverse viewpoints, and search for compromise/ integration of diverse perspectives. In this article, we review evidence concerning how wise reasoning can be facilitated through experiences, teaching materials, environments and cognitive strategies. We also focus on educators, reviewing emerging evidence on how the process of explaining and guiding others impacts one's wisdom. We conclude by discussing the development of wisdom-focused education, proposing that greater attention to the situational demands and the variability in wisdom-related characteristics across social contexts should play a critical role in its development.

The Rationality of Educating for Wisdom

Educational Psychologist, 2001

Sternberg's call for an educational focus on teaching wisdom can be viewed as part of a nascent trend to reorient educational psychology away from exclusive focus on the so-called algorithmic level of analysis. The thrust of his research program on wisdom, like those emphasizing rationality as a critical construct in educational psychology, is on aspects of cognition heretofore backgrounded: the goals and beliefs of the learner, thinking dispositions, values, morality, cognitive styles, and the evaluation of cognition in terms of normative criteria.

Wisdom: Meaning, structure, types, arguments, and future concerns

Current Psychology, 2022

Narrowing the debate about the meaning of wisdom requires two different understandings of wisdom. (a) As action or behaviour, wisdom refers to well-motivated actors achieving an altruistic outcome by creatively and successfully solving problems. (b) As a psychological trait, wisdom refers to a global psychological quality that engages intellectual ability, prior knowledge and experience in a way that integrates virtue and wit, and is acquired through life experience and continued practice. Thus, we propose a two-dimensional theory of wisdom that integrates virtue and wit. Wisdom can be further divided into "humane wisdom" and "natural wisdom" according to the types of capability required. At the same time, we propose that wisdom classification should integrate the views of Sternberg and Wang and be divided into three types: domain-specific wisdom, domain-general wisdom, and omniscient/ overall wisdom. We then discuss three pressing questions about wisdom, and consider five issues important to the future of wisdom research in psychology.

The Role of Education in Development of Wisdom

2015

In order to explore the potential role of education in wisdom development two independent studies were done. The main goal of the first study was focused on exploring some aspects of implicit theories of wisdom. For the purpose of this research authors have constructed The Questionnaire on Wisdom and applied it on a sample of 259 participants 18 to 92 years old. The second study, focused on the explicit theories, used the Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale (SAWS) (Webster, 2003, 2007) that consists of five factors: experience, emotional regulation, reminiscence/ reflection, humour and openness. It was applied on a sample of 439 participants 24 to 88 years old. The role of education in wisdom development was discussed in the light of the results obtained by both implicit and explicit theories of wisdom.

Wisdom, Consciousness, and the Future

The collection of essays in this book chronicles the development of Dr. Tom Lombardo’s theoretical perspective on a series of related philosophical and psychological topics: consciousness and creativity; human evolution and education for the future; and future consciousness and ethical character virtues. Central to the author’s theoretical vision is wisdom. Dr. Lombardo explains how wisdom is the highest expression of future consciousness; how it is the key ideal that should be modeled and taught within education; how wisdom subsumes all of the other important academic virtues; how wisdom aligns with our ongoing technological evolution and global- ecological awareness; and why wisdom is the appropriate ideal toward which we should strive in our individual and collective evolution. Wisdom, Consciousness, and the Future is nothing short of a blueprint for a new and integrative wisdom-based model of education and the purposeful evolution of mind and human consciousness in the future. Included in this link is the Table of Contents and the Introduction.

Cultivating the Whole of Wisdom

A liberal education, Thomistically understood, rightly aims, not just at the formation of the intellect, but at the formation of the whole person, for two sorts of reasons. First, Thomas argues that the moral virtues dispose one to the contemplative act of wisdom. Second, a Thomistically inspired account of the virtue of wisdom as a potential whole, comprising all the speculative and practical intellectual virtues, both preserves the distinction between intellectual and moral virtues and shows that the cultivation of wisdom in any form is internally linked to the formation of whole persons in a contemplative character.

Wisdom, a possibility for development

2016

Wisdom is associated with old age from common sense. This is based on ancient traditions linked to sacred texts, key principles and narratives since the beginnings of civilizations. From a psycho-gerontological point of view, the hypothesis holds that skills would not decline with age; in fact, they would develop throughout the course of life and reach its peak in late adulthood and old age, leading to higher forms of knowledge. In the last decades of the twentieth century, psychology has become interested in wisdom in line with the principles of Positive Psychology and Psycho-gerontology. Wisdom can be considered as a degree of human development in its higher forms, both in its cognitive and affectiveemotional side, or even as a higher degree of integration of both aspects. The importance of each component has generated debates among theorists. Several authors have characterized wisdom considering it as a skill linked to solving problems of human life; a sort of pragmatics of life....