Creating Cultures of Thinking

For more than a decade, I have been an ardent fan of Ron Ritchhart's work. Ron Ritchhart is currently a senior researcher at Harvard's Project Zero, whose mission is "...to understand and enhance high-level thinking and learning across disciplines and cultures and in a range of contexts, including schools..." (http://www.pz.harvard.edu) Previous to Project Zero he was a Denver based educator and staff developer with the Public Education & Business Coalition (PEBC).

Mr. Ritchhart has written numerous books, including several that have become my favorites: Intellectual Character: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Get It; Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners; and most recently, Creating Cultures of Thinking: The 8 Forces We Must Master to Truly Transform Our Schools.

In the midst of countless other initiatives, and in a variety of roles, I have always recognized the vision set forth in Ritchhart's books as the heart of my purpose. It's the red thread that runs through everything I do in my classroom. My mission is to nurture, inspire, and manifest a purpose and a passion for learning, and that's what Creating Cultures of Thinking is all about.

"The literate life includes far more than reading and writing.  Literate people have a passion for asking questions both big and small; a hunger for learning new things and for making connections.  In short, they have a particular stance toward the universe: one of constant engagement and learning."  -Don Graves

In Creating Cultures of Thinking, Ritchhart writes, "If we truly value thinking, then we must be able to articulate what kind of thinking we are after, why they are important, and how they might help one's learning or accomplishment of the task at hand." (31) One of the purposes of this blog is to reflect through writing on my work toward that goal. Through writing here I intend to clarify and streamline my own thinking, enter into a dialogue with others on this learning path, and to keep an ongoing record of growth as I seek to develop in students thinking dispositions that will serve them for a lifetime as citizens, scientists, mathematicians, readers, and writers.

Shoulders

In his excellent book, Steal Like an Artist, writer/artist Austin Kleon quotes Jonathan Lethem as saying that when people call something "original," nine times out of ten they just don't know the references or the original sources involved. See what I did there? I borrowed the quote from Austin Kleon, who was quoting Jonathan Lethem, on how nothing is original. My first in-the-flesh teaching mentor (Nanci Atwell was actually my first mentor, but I only know her through her books), Lori Conrad, regularly quotes either John of Salisbury (1159), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1828) or perhaps Sir Isaac Newton, if you believe the British £2 coin, when she says, "We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us," or alternately, "We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants.  We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours."

For obvious reasons, I can't continue attributing like this; it makes for clunky reading. Instead, consider this a blanket disclaimer, I make no claim of originality.  If you read something here and think to yourself, "I swear I read that in a book by RonRitchhartKatieWoodRayDonalynMiller KellyGallagherAimeeBucknerJeffAndersonKyleneBeers, you are undoubtably right. Swear away. I will attribute everywhere I am capable. Meanwhile, as Gary Paulsen said, "I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books." I would add, "...and to the brilliant colleagues, mentors, and administrators who have nurtured me over the years."

Intellectual Character: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Get It

Intellectual Character: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Get It by Ron Ritchhart

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


More than any other, this book succeeded in defining the model of teaching to which I aspire. After defining Intellectual Character, Ritchhart challenges me to reflect on my practice, deeply and comprehensively, to examine how I interact with students, how I plan, how I structure my day, how I approach critical topics/content...and how those myriad choices enculturate intellectual character--or not. As the dozens of tape flags littering the pages testify, this book is my compass that I read and re-read repeatedly to help me regain my bearings when I sense I am off course in my practice. If you are looking for a "how-to" book on visible thinking, get Ritchhart's new book Making Thinking Visible. If, however, you are aching for serious reflection about the underlying "why" of visible thinking, Intellectual Character: What It Is, Why It Matter, and How to Get It is your book.



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Still Learning to Read

One of the best aspects of working in a year-round school is the opportunity it provides to pause, reflect deeply, and make mid-course corrections. In my third year of teaching fourth grade, after many years in primary and several in staff development, I am finally moving from unconsciously incompetent to consciously incompetent in my 4th grade reading instruction. Although I have talked to parents about “the fourth grade slump,” the (admittedly controversial) difference between learning to read and reading to learn, and the challenging transition to novels, it is only recently that I have truly begun to understand the challenges faced by my fourth grade readers.

I owe many thanks to Franki Sibberson and Karen Szymusiak and their excellent, Still Learning to Read: Teaching Students in Grades 3-6, which has been my course of study this break. I started putting a few of their ideas into practice at the beginning of the school year, but as so often happens, I got distracted. In the interim I have been leading a book study of three other excellent books on teaching reading, none of which pinpoints the precise reading instruction my students need, like Still Learning to Read does.

In fact, close study of their book has led me to suspect that Karen and Franki have been getting to know my readers behind my back. They recognized that book abandonment is the major issue in my classroom. Furthermore, they identified its contributing factors: difficulty keeping track of multiple characters, slow starts in long books, complex structure, hurried and careless book selection, and generally shallow reading. Fortunately for me, Still Learning to Read also offers seeds of lessons to help students overcome these difficulties.

Those lessons will be the basis of my reading instruction for the final 9 weeks of my school year! I’ll keep you posted about how it's going.