Learning & Leading With Habits of Mind

Describing the Habits of Mind 23

assortments of information. It is intuitive, holistic, and conceptual.
Because we often need to solve problems with incomplete information,
we need the capacity to perceive general patterns and jump across gaps of
incomplete knowledge.
Yet another perceptual orient ation is microcentric, examining the indi-
vidual and sometimes minute parts that make up the whole. This worm’s-
eye view involves logical, analytical computation, searching for causality
in methodical steps. It requires attention to detail, precision, and orderly
progressions.
Flexible thinkers display confidence in their intuition. They tolerate
confusion and ambiguity up to a point, and they are willing to let go of
a problem, trusting their subconscious to continue creative and produc-
tive work on it. Flexibility is the cradle of humor, creativity, and reper-
toire. Although many perceptual positions are possible—past, present,
future, egocentric, allocentric, macrocentric, microcentric, visual, audi-
tory, kinesthetic—the flexible mind knows when to shift between and
among these positions.
Some students have difficulty considering alternative points of view
or dealing with more than one classification system simultaneously. Their
way to solve a problem seems to be the onlyway. They perceive situations
from an egocentric point of view: “My way or the highway!” Their minds
are made up: “Don’t confuse me with facts. That’s it!”

Thinking About Thinking (Metacognition)

When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.

—Plato

The human species is known as Homo sapiens sapiens, which basically
means “a being that knows their knowing” (or maybe it’s “knows they’re