BFTP: Life long abilities, behaviors and attitudes

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post February 2, 2008. 

What was once educationally significant, but difficult to measure, has been replaced by what is insignificant and easy to measure. So now we test how well we have taught what we do not value. ~Art Costa

Call them what you will - dispositions, habits of mind, conceptual skills, life-long learning behaviors, high EQ traits - the educational spotlight is turning to abilities that are incredibly important and very tough to quantify. You can hardly turn around without bumping into a set of these things:

Daniel Pink's "Conceptual Skills" in A Whole New Mind...

1. Not just function, but also DESIGN
2. Not just argument, but also STORY.
3. Not just focus, but also SYMPHONY.
4. Not just logic, but also EMPATHY.
5. Not just seriousness, but also PLAY.
6. Not just accumulation, but also MEANING.

Costa and Kallick's Habits of Mind... (These are among my personal favorites.)

1. Persisting
2. Thinking and communicating with clarity and precision
3. Managing impulsivity
4. Gathering data through all senses
5. Listening with understanding and empathy
6. Creating, imagining, innovating
7. Thinking flexibly
8. Responding with wonderment and awe
9. Thinking about thinking (metacognition)
10. Taking responsible risks
11. Striving for accuracy
12. Finding humor
13. Questioning and posing problems
14. Thinking interdependently
15. Applying past knowledge to new situations
16. Remaining open to continuous learning

Partnership for 21st Century Skills's "Life and Career Skills"

• Flexibility & Adaptability
  • Adapting to varied roles and responsibilities
  • Working effectively in a climate of ambiguity and changing priorities
• Initiative & Self-Direction
  • Monitoring one’s own understanding and learning needs
  • Going beyond basic mastery of skills and/or curriculum to explore and expand one’s own learning and opportunities to gain expertise
  • Demonstrating initiative to advance skill levels towards a professional level
  • Defining, prioritizing and completing tasks without direct oversight
  • Utilizing time efficiently and managing workload
  • Demonstrating commitment to learning as a lifelong process
• Social & Cross-Cultural Skills
  • Working appropriately and productively with others
  • Leveraging the collective intelligence of groups when appropriate
  • Bridging cultural differences and using differing perspectives to increase innovation and the quality of work
    
• Productivity & Accountability
  • Setting and meeting high standards and goals for delivering quality work on time
  • Demonstrating diligence and a positive work ethic (e.g., being punctual and reliable)

• Leadership & Responsibility
  • Using interpersonal and problem-solving skills to influence and guide others toward a goal
  • Leveraging strengths of others to accomplish a common goal
  • Demonstrating integrity and ethical behavior
  • Acting responsibly with the interests of the larger community in mind

AASL's "Standards for the 21st Century Learner" has long sets of:

• Dispositions
• Responsibilities
• Self-Assessment Strategies 

The ISTE NETS standards call for students who, among other things,

create original works as a means of personal or group expression.

exhibit leadership for digital citizenship.  

identify trends and forecast possibilities

develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures

plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project

use multiple processes and diverse perspectives to explore alternative solutions

exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and 
productivity. 

demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning. 

 I don't think E.D. Hirsch and his cultural literacy fans would approve of any of this.

Gail Dickinson wrote in the AASL Blog:

The [new AASL] standards are different. Yes, they are, and are meant to be. They reflect the future, not the past. They also more completely cover the work that school librarians do in schools, not just a narrowly focused information skills approach but are a more global direction....

And goes on to speculate about implementation... 

First, implementation has to start with beliefs.We need to talk deeply about our beliefs, why we have them, what they look like in action and who else in the school community shares those beliefs.

Second, we need to wipe the slate clean of old references and begin to delve into curriculum again, both to write the learning curriculum for the school, and to integrate standards into the curriculum from other subject areas.

Third, then, we need to re-think our instruction, both in the sense of formal teaching opportunities, informal instruction, and in the way that we teach indirectly, such as our arrangement of the library, our establishment of policies and procedures, and our work in our many roles as school librarians.

Fourth, we need to assess what we do. This includes making use of the range of assessments and indicators that prove our value in the education of each student, and it also means having a logistically feasible and instructionally sound way of informing each student and parent of learning progress. 

Whoa! Go, Gail! 

Gail's observations apply not just to librarians, of course, but to every educator who thinks these life-long behaviors, attitudes and abilities - these post-HOTS - are important. Isn't this a fascinating time to be in education? Just how do we teach and evaluate an attitude?

Whenever I see the "Habits of Mind" list, I can't help up ask myself how many of these "habits" I personally have. How many I use. How many the adults I work with display.

Are we expecting students to have abilities the adults in their lives may not have themselves?

Perhaps we are a still evolving species.

What's good for the goose dept.

If you don’t think students should have devices in the classroom, take a look around at your next meeting and ask how those in the room would feel if such a limitation was in place. Ryan Bretag 

Here is an old teacher's prayer that I sometimes share: If I am to die, let it be during a staff inservice since the transition to death will be so subtle.

How is it that while we as adult learners know how painful sitting, passively listening, and being bombarded by overly detailed and irrelevant information can be - and how  palliative the sweet escape of checking one's texts, tweets, e-mails and posts can be - that we are not more empathetic when it comes to our students?

One of the most eye opening experiences I ever participated in as a young teacher was a day of student "job shadowing." I was assigned to a high school kid - a high achiever, as I recall - and basically followed him from class-to-class during the day. It was among the longest days of my life. 

When I am made king of education, I will require every teacher, every administrator, and every school board member shadow a student for one day a year. BYOD won't even be a topic of coversation in a 6 months.

7 things you can always do in my class with your device

Dear Students,

If you have finished the required work for my class, you may always use your smartphone, tablet, netbook or laptop to:

1. Read a book, magazine or blog post of personal (and school appropriate) interest.
2. Work on an assignment for another class.
3. Play a pre-approved game that builds skills related to the class. (If you find a game that you feel contributes to your learning, tell me about it and why you think it should go on the approved list.)
4. Have a serious discussion with a classmate about a topic in the course using an approved discussion tool.
5. Listen to an educational podcast or view an educational video. TED talks and Khan Academy videos are always OK. (Remember to use your headphones.)
6. Organize your life by reviewing/updating your calendar, to-do list, or address book.
7. Write in your personal journal.

If you have another activity that you think I should consider appropriate, please convince me of its value. I'll listen.

Sincerely,

Mr. Johnson

I have heard more than one teacher tell me that classroom management has become easier, not harder, when kids are allowed to use their phones and other networked devices in class. Bored too often means disruptive.

It's not the tool; it's how we use it.

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