What Do We Mean

CENTER FOR TEACHING
FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
Gevirtz Graduate School of Education
University of California, Santa Barbara

What do we mean by "habits of mind"?

Over time, students have opportunities to develop skills for investigating academic content that also lead to the ability to engage with and comprehend complex social issues. Some of those skills are: observing, gathering and interpreting data/information, comparing and contrasting, supporting with and arguing from evidence, looking from and understanding different points of view. Students also have opportunities to understand what it means to think critically, to take risks and struggle with ideas, to examine the everyday actions of people, including their own and those of people who do academic work (e.g., historians, mathematicians, readers and writers, artists and scientists). They have opportunities over time to learn how to both question information and to revisit information, skills that can lead to their ability to make informed decisions and to take informed action.

What do we mean by "preparing the mind"?

Whereas building habits of mind is an ongoing and over time process, preparing the mind involves teachers providing opportunities for students to use these skills in order to successfully learn about, think critically with, and act on difficult and complex topics in particular content areas (e.g., slavery and the slave trade). Often, such opportunities are lost, because exhibits, such as the Henrietta Marie exhibit, are transient and seen as extraneous to our everyday school curriculum. Preparing the mind, for both teachers and students, involves having a ‘big picture’, a context for units and lessons that connects to this big picture, and making these connections explicit. It often involves being willing to take risks and providing a ‘safe’ environment in which to struggle with difficult issues and take those risks.

What do we mean by "engaging in or with"?

Many teachers are familiar with the language: ‘Into, Through and Beyond”. While what we’re presenting extends this process, it is also very different in many ways. Engaging in or with complex and powerful issues is facilitated by having habits of mind and preparation for how to do that. In other words, in order to fully take advantage of the learning opportunities that the Henrietta Marie exhibit presents, we can use our habits of mind to engage with the ‘big picture’ (e.g., slavery, colonialism, racism, historical perspectives – then and now). So when we enter the Henrietta Marie exhibit, for example, we have a larger context (a bigger picture) for what we are seeing, hearing, and talking about. This enables us to see the Henrietta Marie exhibit as a case study, a telling case, an example or representative of aspects of this bigger picture of slavery and the slave trade (and implications for related issues that may not be about this period in history).

What do we mean by "taking action on and/or from"?

Without habits of mind and preparation for engaging in and with the Henrietta Marie, for example, it would be easy to come back to the classroom from that event hoping that some learning took place at the exhibit. We could hope that the exhibit alone was enough to convey the history, power and implications of slavery and the slave trade. We understand this, especially in the face of both time constraints and current curricular demands, but we are sharing an alternative view. We think that the work with building habits of mind and of preparing the mind can become a part of everyday classroom life, no matter what curriculum is being taught, and thus we become free to see difficult issues in history/social science or other discipline areas as opportunities. So, rather than thinking in terms of ‘follow-up’ activities, we try to think about the ways in which this thing in which we engaged can become a resource for both academic and social action. Classroom examples of this include: writing a reflective piece on the experience, writing a letter to the editor, creating a museum, comparing and contrasting points of view, comparing and contrasting the transatlantic slave trade and the institution of slavery with instances of slavery that occur today, taking action in the classroom, school, and/or community around related social issues.

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