In teaching toward the Habits of Mind, we are interested in not only how
many answers students know but also how students behave when they
don’t know an answer. We are interested in observing how students produce
knowledge rather than how they merely reproduce it. A critical
attribute of intelligent human beings is not only having information but
also knowing how to act on it.
By definition, a problem is any stimulus, question, task, phenomenon,
or discrepancy, the explanation for which is not immediately known.
Intelligent behavior is performed in response to such questions and problems.
Thus, we are interested in focusing on student performance under
those challenging conditions—dichotomies, dilemmas, paradoxes, polarities,
ambiguities, and enigmas—that demand strategic reasoning, insightfulness,
perseverance, creativity, and craftsmanship to resolve.
Teaching toward the Habits of Mind is a team effort. Because the
acquisition of these habits requires repeated opportunities over a long
period, the entire staff must dedicate itself to teaching toward, recognizing,
reinforcing, discussing, reflecting on, and assessing them. When students
encounter these habits at each grade level in the elementary years and in
each classroom throughout the secondary day—and when the habits also
are reinforced and modeled at home—they become internalized, generalized,
and habituated. They become an “internal compass” to guide and
direct us toward more efficacious, empathic, and cooperative actions.
We need to find new ways of assessing and reporting growth in the