Interview: Pursuing the Essentials of Learning

The publisher’s precise summary of Dispositions (2013) by Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick is intriguing: Two leading consultants present a game-changing look at why and how to ‘mind the gap’ between what we claim are educational essentials, and how we evaluate results.

I can say from recent personal experience that many educators are becoming very intrigued as they read this book, including myself. I’ve written about Dispositions here at the ABPC blog several times recently. For background, you might take a quick look at How Do We Help Our Students Grow the Dispositions for Learning and How to Strengthen Student Dispositions in Your School.

Now it’s time to hear from the authors, who recently agreed to answer a few questions for us.

► We are talking to so many educators who are making a deep connection with your new book Dispositions: Reframing Teaching and Learning. Thanks so much for taking the time to answer a few questions. For readers who haven’t had the chance to read it yet: What is a disposition? How is it different from a behavior, characteristic or skill?

Dispositions are overarching sets of behaviors, not just single specific behaviors. They are dynamic and idiosyncratic in their contextualized deployment rather than prescribed actions to be rigidly carried out.

More than desire and will, dispositions must be coupled with the requisite ability. Dispositions motivate, activate, and direct our abilities.

► How did you select the set of dispositions you explore in your book? Are they drawn from your work on the Habits of Mind, which many educators are familiar with? And if so, how do they fit into that larger framework?

Bena Kallick: Habits of Mind are one set of dispositions. The Habits represent a synthesis drawn from the work of Arthur Costa (Developing Minds, ASCD, 2001) in which many authors describe what successful people do when faced with a problem, the answer to which is not immediately apparent.

The lists of dispositions in this book are compiled from thought leaders—educators, psychologists and philosophers—collected over the past two decades. The book explores the question of which dispositions might best serve as the goals of our curriculum, instruction and assessment.

► We are hearing a lot of discussion now about the importance of “rigor” in the classroom and the need for students to develop “grit,” “tenacity,” and “perseverance.” Can you help our readers make the connections here between dispositions and these desired behaviors?

Costa: Persistence/perseverance is one of the prime dispositions. Much research has shown that this capacity is an absolute necessity for success in school, work and life. “Grit” is a popularized name given to the same disposition—it means doing your darndest to accomplish your desired goal: focus, “stick-to-itivity,” and hanging in there through to completion.

► Some educators read about rigor and grit and wonder if we’re moving away from the idea that learning should be joyous and open to exploration, creativity and spontaneity. From all of your work with Habits of Mind, dispositions and related research, what do you recommend that educators do to find balance?

Kallick: Rigor, complexity and goal accomplishment does not preclude exploration, creativity and spontaneity. Its not either/or.

Students experience exhilaration when they discover meaning (Aha!) The realization of success actually causes the brain to excrete dopamine—feelings of satisfaction.

Students become fascinated with the study of astronomy, when they commune with the beauty of a sunset or feelings of intrigue when they examine a butterfly’s wing. In fact such wonderment is what makes it more rigorous. If students are not feeling a passion for learning, the learning would not be considered rigorous.

► Finally, could you speak specifically to the emergence of the Common Core State Standards and why you believe close attention to dispositions and the mental habits that students develop can help them be successful in meeting the standards? In that context, what suggestions do you have that will help teachers as they search for ways to promote student habit-making?

Costa: School subjects such as math, science, social sciences and literacy provide not only desirable conceptual understandings, they provide opportunities with which students experience wonderment, intrigue, and a desire for lifelong learning.

Along with such standards and expectations, we must also focus on those “bigger” outcomes—the long-term transfer goals and the qualities of mind—that it’s hoped the study of such school subjects promote.

Assessments should illuminate growth in the qualities of mind or “dispositions” that the subjects produce, as well as the content of the discipline. The focus is not only the learning of the standards but also learning from the standards.

Learn more about Dispositions and their relationship to teaching and assessment in this August 2013 post by co-author Arthur L. Costa at the Partnership for 21st Century Skills blog: “Is There an Assessment Gap?”