When we started our vision planning for our school, we were asked to take 10 minutes and write down what we want our ideal graduate to look like. When we started sharing, what amazed me was not only the amount of overlapping but the focus was not on specific acedemic skills but rather the behaviors students would need to be successful. Of course we wanted them ready for college but we wanted them to be inovative, risk takers, problem solvers, creative, the same skillful behaviors mentioned in chapter 13. The 16 Habits of Mind were exactly the types of skills, plus more, that we wanted our students to leave us with.
If these habits are employed and continually worked on they can be used throughout life, to help one be successful, not only in school but in all situations. The author goes on to talk about metacognition, being aware, and the staircase we use to build these habits. The way HH Jacobs laid it out was helpful, however, I believe these habits can also be taught or modeled in a less formal way. Students at our school have to play two sports, many have never played sports before, they are taking a risk. When a teacher doesnt know the answer and admits it, modeling that they don't know everthing, however, they will do research to figure it out, shows humility.
Implementing a more formal curriculum to help students practice these skills is a must,however, this should be extended outside of class because our students stay on campus. This gives us great opportunity to model these habits in real life situations, not only helping the students see the imporance of these habits but allowing them to execute them with guidance.
Your very first sentence brings about some new thinking...maybe it is time for my district to revisit our mission and vision. When these two documents were crated they were up to date, but that was nearly 20 years ago, times they are a changing. Maybe that would be the best place to start when developing curriculum. I believe that what our learners look like and what our graduates look like are very different from 20 years ago.
ReplyDeleteYour situation at KH is unique in that the Habits of Mind can become a 24-hour a day concern. Teacher modeling as you said is absolutely critical. Very difficult to predict what knowledge students will need to have in the future but they certainly will need to know how to work together, find and solve problems, settle disputes, and much more.
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