Refining the Vision
The precepts of a home for the mind are simply stated, but they hold a
powerful message. Many of Friendship Valley’s new staff members found
they shared these beliefs. These professionals had reached a crossroads in
their careers, and they wanted a new direction for their work. The vision
of a home for the mind sparked a deep sense of purposefulness for them,
and they drew tremendous energy from that vision.
Staff members were encouraged to examine what they had done in
their professional lives to this point and how they might do their work dif-
ferently. All teachers received copies of The School as a Home for the
Mind, which includes a chapter titled “The Search for Intelligent Life”
(Costa, 2007, pp. 19–31). Costa’s work provided a framework for inquiry
and dialogue as staff members considered two important questions:
(1) What do you really want Friendship Valley to be? and (2) What will
students and staff look like in this school?
As staff members answered these questions, their focus kept returning
to the Habits of Mind (which are described as “intelligent behaviors” in
The School as a Home for the Mind). The habits supported all that these
professionals believed in, and they saw that the habits clearly would ben-
efit staff members andstudents. Thus, the Habits of Mind became a vital
building block in Friendship Valley’s home for the mind. The Habits of
Mind created a common language of enthusiasm, hope, and commit-
ment. Staff members soon believed the habits were a wonderful vehicle
for taking the school’s vision off the wall and into the classrooms and com-
munity of Friendship Valley.
Transforming the Vision into Culture and Practice
From the beginning of their work, Friendship Valley’s administrators pro-
moted a culture that fostered trust and intellectual curiosity, embraced con-
flict and diversity, encouraged collaboration and cooperation, and reveled
in caring and celebrating. This culture could not have been developed
without the Habits of Mind. The habits were institutionalized into the
school’s culture and practice through four avenues: distributed leadership,
open and honest dialogue, cognitive coaching, and staff development.
334 Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind