47. Five Minds for the Future

By: Howard Gardner

Five Minds for the Future is an interesting book to read alongside Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind- as they take a similar approach to preparing the next generation of thinkers, and even reach similar conclusions. Pink identifies six senses, Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning. The cultivation of these senses, he claims, will prepare people with the types of skills that will be most needed in what he calls the "conceptual age". As opposed to the 'information age' which is about the control and accumulation of knowledge, the 'conceptual age' is about how that information is understood and managed.

Gardner identifies five minds, and there is some overlap with Pink's senses (although there is some conflict as well) - the disciplined mind, the synthesizing mind, the creating mind, the respectful mind, and the ethical mind.

Obviously, the attributes of Gardner's 'respectful' and 'ethical' minds have some similarities with the attributes Pink ascribes to 'empathy'. They also reach similar conclusions in their ideas about the 'synthesizing mind' (Gardner), and 'symphony' (Pink). They diverge slightly more in other areas- Gardner refers to the 'creative mind' as one of the five, where Pink identifies creativity as a basis for all six of his senses.

Interestingly, Gardner (attributing Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) describes creativity in a way in which I'm not terribly comfortable- and I feel awkward even criticizing his definition, as he's shaped so much of what we understand about critical pedagogy. However, this is the part with which I disagree:

According to Csikszenmtihalyi, creativity occurs when- and only when- an individual or group product generated in a particular domain is recognized by the relevant field as innovative and, in turn, sooner or later, exerts a genuine, detectable influence on subsequent work in that domain. This perspective applies to the full range of creations, across spheres and across various degrees of innovation (from the littlest c to the biggest C). (p.81)

This seems to me to be a surprisingly narrow and elitist view of creativity! He goes with an example of life in the United States in the 1980s:

Everyone wanted to be creative: too many persons believed that they were creative, even though they had scarcely begun to master a domain, and even though no expert in the field would have judged them as creative. (p.85)

It sounds like he is describing innovation, not creativity. If not, this must ring false to any art teacher who has seen the burst of creative energy in a student who has simply managed to discover that red and blue make purple for the first time. However, this complaint is indeed just a tangent. You don't need to accept or agree with his definition of creativity to appreciate his overall message.

The critical conclusion that both books reach is the same- there is a new skill set that will define success in the 21st century. More importantly, whether we refer to these disciplines as "minds" or "senses" - it is clear that traditional modes of learning are no longer adequate for navigating an interconnected and rapidly changing world. Both Gardner and Pink suggest that these new perspectives are necessary for progressing forward.

Both of these books hold deep significance for all teachers, but specifically, they embrace the kind of learning that takes place in art classrooms- an unending investigation into new possibilities.

46. The Riddle-Master of Hed

By: Patricia A. McKillip

Despite glowing reviews on Amazon, and a high recommendation from Meezly, I found this book to be tedious and rough around the edges. I didn't find the world that McKillip created to be that interesting, the characters didn't seem very well defined- even the writing seemed awkward at times. Theres very little that's descriptive, which I find necessary in creating a believable fantasy world. Finally, as Joseph Campbell points out, many heroes refuse the call when it is first brought to them- but our hero from Hed refuses the call way to long, to the point of which it becomes the main focus of the first book. That being said, I'm curios to go on to the second book because one of the first reviews on Amazon suggests that the first book is by far the weakest link in the series...

@Meez- did you find this to be true?

On the other hand, because of the praise this series has received, I thought I must be missing something, and so I plowed on. The book does have an interesting cliff-hanger ending that would lead me to consider reading further. I'll wait for Meezley's answer about the other two books as far as that goes. In the meantime, however, I'll put this one down for now.

45. War of the Worlds

By: H.G. Wells
Illustration by: Ian Edington D'Israeli

At first I wasn't so impressed by the faithful reproduction of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds in graphic novel form. The familiar opening that I once read not so long ago, and saw reproduced in three movie versions didn't seem to hold any new insights into this classic. The illustration didn't strike me as anything special, and this graphic novel came quickly on the heels of the second installment of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen- a unique and new retelling Wells' story.

However, after a bit of time with it, it delivers. I'm a big fan of the original novel and the classic film (and I have to say, as stupid as it it, I did enjoy the Tom Cruise remake for pure giant-machines-blowing-shit-up factor). Hohttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifwever, neither film visualize the original Victorian setting that Wells described, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen doesn't focus on the story in the same way. There was another terrible movie adaptation of the original story, but its not even worth mentioning as a serious effort. In fact, I showed it to my students one day as a joke.

Once D'Israeli's version gets rolling, the imagery brings new life to the story. The panels are often drawn from extreme angles that give a sense of how small the humans are compared to their massive invaders.

The nice thing is, that the whole graphic novel is available online for free. Thanks, Dark Horse!

44. Snake Agent

By: Liz Williams

Detective Inspector Chen's latest case is to find a missing girl. The problem is, that the missing girl is dead. That wouldn't be so unusual, except that her death isn't the mystery- its what happened to her after she died- and that wouldn't be as unusual, except that its not her body that is missing, its her ghost.

Detective Chen is The Singapore 3 (Singapore is now a chain city) police department's Snake Agent, the one who deals with their supernatural cases.

SA is an interesting book, the problem is that it crosses too many genres. Its sort of Blade Runner, meets The Matrix meets John Constantine. If that sounds like a lot of genre bending, let's remember that Blade Runner is also Film Noir meets Sci Fi, The Matrix is cyberpunk meets hong kong action.

In other words, Snake Agent is a Hard-Boiled-Sci-Fi-Cyberpunk-Kung-Fu-Film-Noir-Fire-and-Brimstone-Fantasy. Theres even a little Lovecraft "ancient gods" thing thrown in there for good measure.

Yes, its a little too much of everything.

The universe that Williams' creates is so dependent on all of these different worlds working together, which I'm not entirely sure that they do. The cyberpunk theme gets kind of lost in the middle, the Noir comes and goes. The Constantine-in-Asia thing gets most of the attention, and some of the other pieces just get distracting.

The characters are familiar and flat, and talk in smart dialog as if they expect to be in a movie version soon.

That being said, the book is still an enjoyable read. The plot is certainly original, the smart dialog is... smart. I'm not sure that I'll run out to get the next "Inspector Detective Chen" novel, but if it looks like it finds its ground a little better, I could be persuaded to pick it up.

43. Marvel's Eternals

By: Neil Gaiman
Illustrated by: John Romita Jr.

The Eternals is Gaiman's re-envisioning of a Marvel franchise from the 60's, about immortal guardians of the earth with super human powers- more powerful than your average super-hero - but significantly less powerful than the giant god-like Celestials that come back to visit earth to check on things every once in a while.

Although familiar to the superhero genre, Romita's beautiful panels do take a step above your run-of-the-mill comic. His compositions have great depth and color, and the scenes with the gargantuan eternals and puny humans are fantastic.

Gaiman's writing is engaging and he certainly breathes new life into the series (it seems as if this is just the beginning). However, he certainly doesn't take the same risks that he took in re-imagining Sandman, which remains unchallenged by The Eternals as his masterpiece.

42. Demo

By: Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan

I've read a good series of great to decent graphic novels this year after being deprived of anything from that medium for about 10 months. Demo represents the end of that run.

The idea behind Demo is that its a series of unrelated vignettes about kids with superpowers who are struggling to make sense of their lives when they reach some kind of crossroads. Sounds like an ok premise- a Gen Y (or is it Z now?) alternative take on the superhero topic. Guarenteed to have some angst and sullen teens with super powers.

However.

The stories start off pretty well. A young girl who can't control her destructive power begs her boyfriend to take her away as she weans herself off the meds that keep her in check. Kids and their angst about overprescribed meds. I can buy that one.

Then it begins to go downhill. A superstrong guy stops a robbery. Ok. A girl finds out she can't die when her brother proves it to her by driving into a tree after their father's funeral. Meh. As the stories wind down, we find one story where its unclear if the teen has a super power or is just super-manipulative. The last two stories don't even have characters with super powers in them. I'm not even sure that they have a point.

As to the artwork, Cloonan's style goes back and fourth between gritty and edgy to anime-inspired, which is anything but versitle. If the story is serious, its gritty. If its humorus, its anime.

Somewhere along the line this writer/illustrator team had a good idea. Then they tried to make a series out of it. The stupid thing about this is that there are so many possibilities how does the well run dry after just a few? Sloppy. Lazy.

Skip it. Go watch Heroes instead.