As many of you may have realized by reading my book reviews, I am on a personal quest to better understand what happens when people of any age think and learn (and, yes, learn to think). While it's true that my curiosity has been spurred by the intellectual and emotional development of my two young sons, these aspects of our humanness that I'm exploring can have tremendous impact on us in our daily adult lives. The ideas I've encountered in these various books have really had an impact in my life: improved clarity of thought, focus, productivity, awareness (of self and surroundings), creativity, and follow-through with my ideas.
In this book, the editors and contributors explore what David Perkins refers to as "thinking on the road of life." The essence of the book is about a set of habits of mind that can help anyone--again, of any age--successfully deal with problems, mysteries, and dilemmas whenever and wherever they occur.
Perkins tells a story about following a young man in a red convertible. He writes, "This young man surprised me. When we reached a railroad crossing, he was painfully careful. He slowed down as he approached the tracks. The closer he got to the tracks, the more he slowed. As his car passed over the tracks, it hardly was moving at all... with great care [he] looked to the left, and then he looked to the right. No train was coming. Satisfied with his safety, he gunned the engine and sped off. The young man was careful--and yet he wasn't! Surely, the middle of the tracks isn't the best position from which to scan for oncoming trains!" The convertible-driving man's habit of mind (being careful) contained a bug. His habit did have a thoughtful phase (when he scanned the tracks) but he was decidedly not thoughtful about his choice of a safe vantage point for the scanning.
A habit of mind should be both reliable and "smoothly triggered" so you expend minimal mental energy on getting the habit to activate. Perhaps the best endorsement of this book's wealth is for me to list the book's 16 habits of mind. The contributors believe these habits imbue us with not just information but an understanding of how to act on that information.
- Persisting
- Managing impulsivity
- Listening with understanding and empathy
- Thinking flexibly
- Thinking about thinking (metacognition)
- Striving for accuracy
- Questioning and posting problems
- Applying past knowledge to new situations
- Thinking and communicating with clarity and precision
- Gathering data through all senses
- Creating, imagining, innovating
- Responding with wonderment and awe
- Taking responsible risks
- Finding humor
- Thinking interdependently
- Remaining open to continuous learning
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/409/tr.cgi?fbook
You can reach Lee Hudspeth at:
mailto:LeeHudspeth@TheNakedPC.com
