Free Your Mind and the Learning Will Follow

<p><strong>FREE YOUR MIND AND THE REST WILL FOLLOW<br></strong><br></p><p>Let’s talk today about open-mindedness and its sexy relationship with education. </p><p>Notable researchers Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman explained open-mindedness as “the willingness to search actively for evidence against one's favoured beliefs, plans, or goals, and to weigh such evidence fairly”.</p><p>Malcolm Forbes said, “Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.”</p><p>Poet Anthem Fox said it a little differently, “There are no empty minds, just closed ones. Therefore, education is not for the filling of empty minds but for the creation of and expansion of open ones.”<br> </p><p>However you want to illustrate it in your mind, it is pretty obvious that true education, that which aims to increase a person’s growth and see them understand the world and those who occupy it, promotes open-mindedness.<br> <br> Before I go on to extol the virtues of an open-mind I should quickly throw in a quick caveat. That is that good open-mindedness is not about having your brain exposed to the elements and having your mind blown about here there and everywhere with every change in the wind. It comes with the responsibility to judge wisely and act quickly when occasion calls. While generally speaking open-mindedness is avoiding black and white, cut and dry answers, and searching for understanding of different perspectives I believe that there are things in this world that we can honestly see through historical lenses and common human values to be wrong and not worthy of our time. Professor Walter Kotschnig said, “By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.” In other words, an open mind is like a door that you can open and shut. You can invite what you want and need to invite in and keep out nefarious or ridiculous party-crashers. A closed mind is one that closes the door to any ideas that challenge a preferred narrative.</p><p>We all like to consider ourselves to be open-