Nearly all cultures have evolved specific ideas about education, although only in modern times does education prove to be virtually coterminous with … - Howard Gardner

Some leaders seek power for its own sake; some leaders seek power in order to increase their own resources or those of family, friends, and close associates. Those are not the leaders whom I admire, nor are they the leaders that young people should emulate. As I make clear in the pages that follow, the key to effective leadership is amoral: The skills that I describe can be used for the ends of a Nelson Mandela, or for the ends of Osama bin Laden. But once we turn from description to prescription, it is clear that, as individuals and as members of broader communities, we should do all that we can to increase the incidence of good leaders — individuals who are engaged, excellent, and dedicated to the pursuit of ethical ends.

By introducing these elements at the outset, I wish to stress that all creative activity grows, first, out of the relationships between an individual and the objective world of work and, second, out of the ties between an individual and other human beings.

No less than human beings, human institutions exhibit constraints. Schools or factories or offices may be malleable, but they are not infinitely so. Economies of scale, vexations of human relations, bureaucratic histories, diverse and changing expectations, and pressures for accountability burden all significant human institutions. In the past, serving a smaller and less diverse clientele, schools faced certain problems; today, in a rapidly changing world, where the schools are expected to serve the multiple needs of every young individual, the limitations of this institution are sometimes overwhelming. If one wishes to bring about change in schools, it is important to understand their modes of operation no less than one understands the operations of individuals within them. Accordingly, following the investigation of constraints on human knowing, I consider some limits governing educational institutions, most especially schools. A focus on children and schools brings us face-to-face with a third dimension: the question of which knowledges and performances we value. If one considers school strictly as a place in which certain criteria are to be met (say, for the purpose of certification), it matters not what use one can subsequently make of the skills and knowledge acquired there. One could readily tolerate schools where understanding was considered irrelevant or even noxious. But if one wishes to argue that school should relate to a productive life in the community, or that certain kinds of understanding ought to be the desiderata of education, then the research results I have described are consequential.