Many people have played themselves to death. Many people have
eaten and drunk themselves to death. Nobody ever thought him-
self to death.
—Gilbert Highet, educator and authorWe l c o m e t o t h e H a b i t s o f M i n d. A s w e e m b a r k o n t h i s j o u r n e y t o g e t h e r ,
our deepest wish is that this will be a generative experience—one that
deepens your thinking about what is important to teach students for their
future. We hope that it will nurture new possibilities for your work in
education.
The intent of Part I of this book, Discovering and Exploring Habits
of Mind, is to let you know where we’re coming from. In Chapter 1 we
start with a brief history of how society’s perspectives of what constitutes
“intelligence” have changed over the years and where the Habits of Mind
fit into the more modern conception of intelligence.
Chapter 2 describes the 16 Habits of Mind. This list was derived from
studies of what successful, “intelligent” people do when they are con-
fronted with problems to solve, decisions to make, creative ideas to gen-
erate, and ambiguities to clarify. These successful people are from all
walks of life and include physicians, teachers, auto mechanics, entrepre-
neurs, artists, and scientists. We propose that if these are the attributes of
successful people, then we should help our students acquire these attri-
butes as well. They are the characteristics that will predict students’ success
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