by Mayus Chavez
Last October, Mexico City had the pleasure of receiving Dr. Howard Gardner. Banamex, one of the most important Mexican Financial Groups, invited him to their “2009-3rd Encuentro de Educación Financiera “Respuestas de Pe$o” Ser, conocer y hacer para vivir juntos”. Dr. Gardner’s lecture “Five Minds of the Future” gave participants new alternatives to develop strategies within ourselves, and everyone who is devoted to education in a formal or informal way. He focused on how ethics must be present in each of our goals in the fields of knowing how to be, how to do, how to know and how to live, introducing his GoodWork Project to our Mexican society. In this forum, participants worked to find new answers for big questions such as: how to get new resources, how to administrate those resources, and how to create and save a legacy to our people.
Some participants in the forum were Alonso Lujambio, secretario de Educación Pública, who opened the event. Also, Enrique Zorrilla, General Director of Banamex, Alejandro Werner, subsecretario de Hacienda, Javier Arrigunaga director corporativo de Jurídico y Desarrollo Institucional de Banamex, Andrés Albo, director de Compromiso Social de Banamex y Loreto García Muriel, directora de Educación Financiera Banamex.
Dr. Gardner’s presentation contributed to analyze our social and economical situation from another point of view, giving to those who are concerned about education and about our global situation the opportunity to make deep reflections on our personal behavior, and how our daily work has a big impact on others, considering ethics, respect, creativity, synthesis, and discipline as the stones to construct a better future for mankind.
Some conclusions were: that we must work together to increase financial stability to Mexican families, giving them access to education through different cooperative programs, to promote GoodWork in order to make people realize how important it is for a country to work with its principles, and make a link with personal values to develop their financial situations, educating through values, and through the “Five Minds for the Future” principles, acting and working hand by hand to make that happen in every way, within each one’s job, family, government, society, school, mass media, and corporations.
We thank Dr. Gardner for being among us, and for his guidance in making a better Mexico.
See Howard Gardner discuss 5 Minds for the Future at the RSA in London in December of 2009.