Teaching for Wisdom in Public Schools to Promote Personal Giftedness

Schools must educate students not merely to become knowledgeable about disciplines that concern the external world (like history or geography) but also to pursue a responsible and happy life. This is a personal discipline or an art unto itself, and those that are gifted at it can be called wise. Generally, there are two approaches to developing wisdom. The first focuses on character education; wise students are those who have acquired or exercise good character. The second is an expertise, often tacit, in “the fundamental pragmatics of life.” However, the Socratic method—in particular, the Stoic wisdom curriculum—combines the strengths of these other two approaches. For Pasupathi and Staudinger 2000), old views of giftedness as a stable trait are at odds with a view of wisdom as expertise; but recent conceptions of giftedness as emerging from interactions between personality characteristics and sociocultural factors are more closely allied to wisdom that can be taught.

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