How did a man’s daily walk with his dog lead to a breakthrough invention?
Subject: Thinking - Habits of Mind
Event: The book Habits of Mind is published, 2008
Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it each day, and at last we cannot break it. -Horace Mann
What is a characteristic of a person who is thinking and learning well? What kinds of things will this person routinely do that reflect a sound process for thinking, learning, and decision-making?
The answers to these questions can be found in a book called Habits of Mind, which was published on this day by Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick in 2008. Essentially, the sixteen habits sum up the characteristics of effective thinkers, in other words, the good habits and specific actions that lead to quality thinking and learning:
Persisting
Managing Impulsivity
Listening with Understanding and Empathy
Thinking Flexibly
Thinking about Thinking
Striving for Accuracy
Questioning and Posing Problems
Applying Past Knowledge to New Situations
Thinking and Communicating with Clarity & 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 (1)
To illustrate one of the habits, number 11: Creating, Imagining, Innovating, we might look at the inventive thinking of George de Mestral.
One day, when the Swiss inventor returned with his dog from a walk, he noticed that he and his dog were covered with cockleburrs. Instead of being annoyed, he studied the burrs under a microscope where he noted their hook-like shape. Many people had imagined different varieties of fasteners for clothing, but as Mestral looked under his microscope, he imagined a new one.
Engineering artificial fasteners that replicated the ones he found in nature took a few years, but Mestral eventually succeeded in creating his easy-to-use hook and loop fastener. He registered his invention in 1958. He called it Velcro.
As an inventor, Mestral cultivated and practiced creative and innovative thinking until it became a habit, a habit that allowed him to see something that no one had ever seen before.
Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason: What habit of mind did George de Mestral demonstrate, and how did he demonstrate it?
Challenge - Bracket the Habits: On a piece of paper create a tournament bracket based on the sixteen Habits of Mind. Randomly assign the numbers to your bracket, then determine using your own judgment who the winners of each matchup would be. When you get to your final four, write out an explanation of which habit won each of the final three matchups and why.
ALSO ON THIS DAY:
December 15, 1979: On this day in 1979, the game Trivial Pursuit was born. Two Canadian journalists Chris Haney and Scott Abbott were playing Scrabble when they discovered that some of the game’s pieces were missing. Undeterred, they decided to create their own game. It took two years to develop and market the game, but when it was released in 1981, it became wildly popular. In 1984 more than 20 million games were sold. The object of Trivial Pursuit is to acquire six wedge-shaped colored pieces by correctly answering trivia questions in six different categories. Since the game’s release, dozens of different editions of the game have been added, including theme-based versions, based on Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, The Beatles, and Disney. All versions of the game follow the same pattern which is based on moving around a wheel-shaped game board and answering trivia questions in six separate categories. In 2003 Trivial Pursuit was named to the “Games Hall of Fame” by Games magazine, and in 2008 Hasbro bought the full rights to the game for $80 million (1). The word trivia has its origins in Latin, from trivialis, meaning three (tri) roads (via) or “crossroads.” This probably explains the aspect of trivia being common or ordinary information, the kind of things that people would talk about when they met at the crossroads. A related word trivium has a more academic history. In Medieval education, the trivium was the term used to represent the “three roads” or “three ways” to acquiring the first level of a classical education at university through the study of rhetoric, grammar, and logic. The trivium would then be followed by the quadrivium ("four ways"): arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. The fact that the trivium made up the basic level of education and the quadrivium the advanced, is further explanation for the modern meaning of trivia as “less important matters” (2).
Sources:
1-Costa, Arthur . and Bena Kallick. Habits of Mind Across the Curriculum. Virginia: ASCD, 2008.
2-http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_trivia_pursuit.htm
3-http://www.word-detective.com/052206B.html#trivia
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