Importance Of Habits Of Mind

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Habits of mind refer to ways of approaching learning that are both intellectual and practical and that will support students’ success in a variety of fields and disciplines. They are coping strategies that deal with problems one may face relating to schooling, which were developed to understand how students could best approach any problem they might encounter. Habits of mind involves more than skillful and persistent problem solving, in fact it involves knowing how to implement clusters of behaviors to manage difficult situations. American educational reformer Horace Mann once observed that “habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it each day, and at last we cannot break it.” The intent is to help students get into the habit of behaving intelligently. When one draw upon these intellectual resources, the results are more powerful and of greater significance than if he or she fail to engage in such patterns of knowledgeable behavior. One of the many habits includes openness, which is the willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world. Openness is fostered when people are encouraged to examine their own perspectives to find connections with the perspectives of others, as well as practice different ways of gathering, investigating, developing, and presenting information. This tends to be my area of deficit as I am …show more content…

It’s not easily achieved and is somewhat like a muscle, in that one has to build it up over time through intellectual work and hardship. The beauty of openness is that it allows one to find out so many new things and soak in so many new perspectives. It’s not always an easy thing to do, but the effort to think openly and embrace new ideas are worth it when opportunities and benefits come from opening the mind. Living in a world where there are so many views of everything having an open mind can only bring positive

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