Neighbor Derek Bok has a new book arguing that higher education can do a much better job of preparing students for their lives as adult citizens by paying more attention to new research and insights relevant to teaching.

ECG asked Bok about his new book.

ECG:  Who do you hope reads this book?

DB:  My primary audience would be educators, be they professors, academic leaders, and perhaps even teachers and principals in our high schools.

ECG:  What are the important lessons that you’d like your readers to take away from the book?

DB:  The main message I would like readers to take away is that psychologists and brain scientists have recently revealed that a whole series of capabilities and qualities of mind and behavior that are very important to employers, public officials, and, more important, to the lives of students, which were long thought to be fixed and largely unchangeable, are actually malleable, and hence potentially teachable at least through the traditional college years. Secondarily, I hope to have explained what we already know about how to develop these qualities in students and what we still don’t know and need to find out.

Bok is 300thAnniversary University Professor at Harvard University.