Developing Leaders for Restructuring Schools: New Habits of Mind and Heart1 report states that “Education is the last big dinosaur”. Schools are transformed into community learning centers, accessible to all, founded on various philosophies, steered by consultants, funded by non-profits and taxpayers, and implemented via piece-meal engineering. We wish as Hamlet to bind it all in a nutshell, but learning the whos who and who do we trust can only be learned in study.

Leadership in Educational Administration Development (LEADS) is administered by the U. S. Department of Educations Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). They boast of 57 training centers, one in each state, the District of Columbia and the Caribbean and Pacific Island areas. Its stated purpose was to improve the leadership skills of school administrators. It does much, much more than this. OERIs record has proven to be an oxymoron. Research has not LEAD to improvement by conventional standards. The New Habits and Mind report (1991) is the most revealing expose on what change our leaders would impose in our schools. The first quote in the forward sets tone:

“When hallowed tradition proves to be hollow convention, then we must not hesitate to shatter tradition.”
President Bush, quoted by Bruno V. Manno, Asst. Sec.

Thirty people contributed to the report, hailing from nine states inclusive of Dr. Kate Dickson from West Linn School District, former director of Oregon Leadership Academy. This is comforting, a change agent schooled in leadership for change. Ultimately it was not an easy task as they “offer no comfortable nostrums to ease passage through the rough waters of change’. (pg. iii)

Highlights of Habits and Mind
1. “Restructuring requires that we rethink the way we go about changing and improving.” (pg. 1)
2. “Restructuring is a process, not a product. A school district or school never reaches the final state of being restructured. The Process is dynamic.” (pg. 7)
3. “The rapidly changing global society and economy requires a very different worker and citizen than the schools are now graduating.” (pg. 7)
4. “Empowerment: Stop doing for others what they can do for themselves.” (pg.13)
5. “Restructuring efforts are by their nature ‘bootstrapped’ endeavors, relying on the existing system to renew themselves.” (pg. 25)
6. “Restructuring is a value and theory-driven process. It springs from dissatisfaction with schooling as it is, and a rejection of conventional values and beliefs. It is guided by a sure vision of what schooling can be and what the aims of education are. Horace’s Compromise, the path-breaking manifesto by Theodore Sizer, is one exemplar of such vision”. (pg. 43)

How can they justify their vision in a nation based on liberty? How is it we have been so ignorant of their true nature in transforming our educational institutions? What remains to be seen if restructuring is never-ending? Did the participants understand the ultimate purposes in creating a perpetual bureaucracy?

The Habits of Mind tautology is as prolific as Lifelong Learning. A web search on ‘habits of mind’ finds hundreds of articles on education, not the least which is an organization named “Habits of Mind International”. Their stated mission is to “transform schools into learning communities where thinking and habits of mind are taught, practiced, valued and infused in to the culture” Their vision, “To create a more thoughtful, cooperative, compassionate generation of people who skillfully work to resolve social, environmental and economic and political problems”
http://www.habitsofmindinternational.com/store/home.php

Three of these ‘problems’ are the pillars of UNESCO’s charter as the appointed leader in global education. ‘Habits of Mind’ are fully described by the experts, Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick, experts on group dynamics, creative and critical thinking and alternative assessment practices. The Sizer/ Meier (the Sizer mentioned above) habits seem harmless enough: habits of joy, humility, communication, empathy and imagination. The habits of perspective and analysis dont fit the mix, but fitting for critical thinking skills. http://www.i-learnt.com/Thinking_Habits_Mind.html. Very impressive, but did they study the primary sources of this compassionate pedagogy?

Ralph Harper’s contribution² to UNESCO’s mission in the 50’s was in the nature of seeking truth, using critical analytic skills. “There are three habits of mind which the teacher should keep his eye on: discipline, criticism and fertility. This means that a students progress is to be judged by his sense of order, his openness to controversy, his ability to originate ideas.” (pg. 242) Harper inherited his existentialist philosophy from Soren Kierkegaard, but noted that some existentialists, “who prefer or who can only believe in a neostoicism, which, while not believing in man is able to overcome the world, does believe that man alone must try to do so.” (pg. 245). He is alluding to philosophers like Nietzsche’s overman and possibly to those who have not only ‘habits of mind’ but of ‘heart’ also. They are devoted to transforming beliefs, where in existentialism marries rationalized religion with education. Habits of Mind, and Heart, was sown across decades of reform and bloomed in the mandated Common Core standards.

“Habits + Bloom’s = Common Core” is the equation teachers will be learning this year. They can be viewed at http://habitsandhigherlevel.weebly.com/index.html. “The ELA (English Language Arts) and Mathematics standards themselves have ‘habits’ built in that add a layer to our standards we have not had to face before. Habits of mind encompass a range of skills that are critical both to academics, but also to success in work and life.” The Bloom in the equation refers to Bloom’s Taxonomy, familiar to most teachers. The Common Core refers to the higher order thinking skills, more accurately described by “critical attitudes for good thinking”. Teachers are to become facilitators of ‘higher-level questions’ on issues Harper best explains.

“…never to let the reiteration of a supposed truth impede the growth of the three habits of mind mentioned above. This means, in practical language, that the community should expect the school to engage in controversy, to think and say what is unpopular or even what may seem wrong-headed” (pg. 243)
Do you put your belief in educational philosophies?

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1 – Developing Leaders for Restructuring Schools, New Habits of Mind and Heart; Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U. S. Dept. of Education, Aug.,1991.

2 – Significance of Existence and Recognition for Education, by Ralph Harper; Modern Philosophies in Education, National Society for the Study of Education, Un. of Chicago Press, Vol. I, 1955.