One distinguished psychologist explains why he believes this is so and how to reverse course
Source: Is the U.S. Education System Producing a Society of “Smart Fools”? – Scientific American
We may not just be selecting the wrong people, we may be developing an incomplete set of skills—and we need to look at things that will make the world a better place.
Wisdom is about using your abilities and knowledge not just for your own selfish ends and for people like you. It’s about using them to help achieve a common good by balancing your own interests with other people’s and with high-order interests through the infusion of positive ethical values.
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ethical reasoning involves eight steps: seeing that there’s a problem to deal with (say, you see your roommate cheat on an assignment); identifying it as an ethical problem; seeing it as a large enough problem to be worth your attention (it’s not like he’s just one mile over the speed limit); seeing it as personally relevant; thinking about what ethical rules apply; thinking about how to apply them; thinking what are the consequences of acting ethically—because people who act ethically usually don’t get rewarded; and, finally, acting.
If we start testing for these broader kinds of skills, schools will start to teach to them, because they teach to the test.
Rainbow Project at Yale
Kaleidoscope at Tufts
Panorama at Oklahoma State