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Rating: 
Summary: Gardner's Rolling Stone
Review: Fortunately for readers (and anyone connected to education), Gardner has not been idle since he first published his benchmark book Frames of Mind. I sincerely appreciated reading how he has continued to develop his thinking in cognitive psychology and his suggestions for education need to be taken seriously as a blueprint for change. Along with Postman, Kohn, Ravitch, Darling-Hammond, Allen, and Perrone, Gardner takes the position that education relates cultural values as much as anything. Further, those values need to engage the student in sustained, meaningful encounters in science, art, and narrative that produce a vigorous, cognitive growth. His candid suggestions for educators to assimilate units on truth, beauty, and goodness suggest that Gardner is not only willing to make a radical suggestions for the advancement of learning among children (in the spirit of Dewey and Bruner), but also that the humanitarian interests in education are worth sustaining; that is, for Gardner, meaning needs to take ascendency in our instruction.Gardner is a fantastic writer. He has a gift for explanation and explication; I recommend the book if only for the Appendix. He delineates between two world views in education and it is worth the price of the book itself. Yes, his suggestions are radical and extreme, but being normal is only taking education down to a new nadir. I heartily endorse this book.
Rating:
Summary: Gardner's Rolling Stone
Review: Fortunately for readers (and anyone connected to education), Gardner has not been idle since he first published his benchmark book Frames of Mind. I sincerely appreciated reading how he has continued to develop his thinking in cognitive psychology and his suggestions for education need to be taken seriously as a blueprint for change. Along with Postman, Kohn, Ravitch, Darling-Hammond, Allen, and Perrone, Gardner takes the position that education relates cultural values as much as anything. Further, those values need to engage the student in sustained, meaningful encounters in science, art, and narrative that produce a vigorous, cognitive growth. His candid suggestions for educators to assimilate units on truth, beauty, and goodness suggest that Gardner is not only willing to make a radical suggestions for the advancement of learning among children (in the spirit of Dewey and Bruner), but also that the humanitarian interests in education are worth sustaining; that is, for Gardner, meaning needs to take ascendency in our instruction. Gardner is a fantastic writer. He has a gift for explanation and explication; I recommend the book if only for the Appendix. He delineates between two world views in education and it is worth the price of the book itself. Yes, his suggestions are radical and extreme, but being normal is only taking education down to a new nadir. I heartily endorse this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Noble, Not Practical
Review: Gardner has noble ideas regarding education. The central theme in this book is that students should be exploring beauty, truth, and morality. Gardner offers rich themes of study such as Mozart, evolution and the Holocaust as examples of how teachers should introduce students to the concepts of beauty, truth, and morality. His ideas are noble, but I found that he did not address a lot of the concerns I have as a New York City school teacher. He spends little time addressing class size and literacy and no mention is made of school security. Overall, Garnder's ideas may sound good, but no one should take his book as a "How To" or even an accurate description of what students need now.
Rating:
Summary: Noble, Not Practical
Review: Gardner has noble ideas regarding education. The central theme in this book is that students should be exploring beauty, truth, and morality. Gardner offers rich themes of study such as Mozart, evolution and the Holocaust as examples of how teachers should introduce students to the concepts of beauty, truth, and morality. His ideas are noble, but I found that he did not address a lot of the concerns I have as a New York City school teacher. He spends little time addressing class size and literacy and no mention is made of school security. Overall, Garnder's ideas may sound good, but no one should take his book as a "How To" or even an accurate description of what students need now.
Rating: 
Summary: Strongly suited for parents
Review: In Gardner's view, truth, beauty, and good are the pillars upon which an education striving for deep, profound understanding should stand. Throughout the book he offers the examples of Darwin's Origin of Species, Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, and the Holocaust as possible case studies in order to achieve this goal. His plan is persuasive in its scope and ideology, and attempts to reach all children through espousing the theory of multiple intelligences and several "pathways" to educational success. In sum he is bolstered in theory, but thin in implementation. For parents, "The Disciplined Mind" seems an excellent source through which to guide ones' children. For educators, it seems overly ambitious, practically requiring a paradigm shift in the educational bureacracy.
Rating:
Summary: Strongly suited for parents
Review: In Gardner's view, truth, beauty, and good are the pillars upon which an education striving for deep, profound understanding should stand. Throughout the book he offers the examples of Darwin's Origin of Species, Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, and the Holocaust as possible case studies in order to achieve this goal. His plan is persuasive in its scope and ideology, and attempts to reach all children through espousing the theory of multiple intelligences and several "pathways" to educational success. In sum he is bolstered in theory, but thin in implementation. For parents, "The Disciplined Mind" seems an excellent source through which to guide ones' children. For educators, it seems overly ambitious, practically requiring a paradigm shift in the educational bureacracy.
Rating: 
Summary: Idealistic, but thought provoking
Review: In the Disciplined Mind, Gardner lays out a basis for what education ought to look like. Gardner highlights the fact that the societal view of what defines an intelligent person is changing. In previous eras, someone who knew a lot of facts was considered to be intelligent. However, in our ever changing technological world, his assumption is that an intelligent person is someone who can think critically about an issue and problem solve. It is this idea that he uses as the foundation of his thoughts on education.
In line with, Intelligence Reframed and The Unschooled Mind, Gardner points out that there is more to intelligence than the traditional IQ tests lead us to believe. As a part of this philosophy, he argues that for all children in an educational institution, we need to do more to tap into their different perspectives on the world around us, while still helping them to truly understand some basic concepts.
Unfortunately, Gardner's ideas in this book are so idealistic in terms of structuring and reforming public schools that they will problem do more to discredit his work than to shore up his place as an educational reformer. Limiting curriculum to only three areas of study is a radical shift in the paradigm of modern education. The idea he expresses in this book are probably one step too far for not just politicians and parents, but also many classroom teachers. If there was a way to quantify the end result of how Gardner would like children to be taught, he would be considered the greatest educational reformer of all time.
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