Dispositions for Intelligent Behaviours
Arthur Costa and Robert Garmston
Professors Emeriti
California State University
Our hope is to offer future citizens a curriculum developed around broad outcomes and focussed on enduring, essential, transdisciplinary learning’s that are congruent with the vision of continuous, life long learning and with the mission of a learning organisation.
These dispositions transcend class levels and subject areas and as such are continually reinforced throughout the school and hopefully at home.
They are to be found in the dispositions, or habits of mind, that enhance ones capacities to direct and control persistence, to manage impulsively, to develop creativity, to encourage metacognition, to strive for accuracy, to listen with empathy, for risk taking ,and to encourage a sense of wonderment.
All teachers' regardless of subject or class level, can agree on these desirable qualities. If encouraged throughout a school they have the power to integrate and unify students learning - even if subjects are taught in an isolated manner.
The Five Human Capacities, or Mind States that are the wellsprings of all high performing individuals, groups, and organisations.
As teachers we need to amplify the following dispositions
- Efficacy:
The human quest for continuous, life long learning, self-empowerment mastery and control. The need to make a difference and the willingness to take responsibility to do so.
- Flexibility:
The capacity to perceive from different viewpoints and the ability to change, adapt, and expand the range of options.
- Craftsmanship:
The human yearning to become clearer, more elegant, precise, congruent and integrated. We can continually strive for excellence, and are wiling to work to attain our own high standards, and pursue ongoing learning.
- Consciousness:
The unique human capacity to monitor and reflect on their own thoughts and actions. We are willing to monitor what we are doing moment by moment and be aware of our actions and their effects on others and the environment
- Interdependence:
The human need for belonging and connectedness and to become one with the larger system and community of which they are part.
The staff and students draw on the five mind states to organise and direct their resources as they resolve problems, diagnose their own frailty in themselves and others, and plan for the most productive ways of contributing towards a common vision. They are a challenge for educators to think big when so many forces influence us to think small and to narrow the focus of our educational outcomes.
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