Positive Dispositions Toward Learning (A List In Progress)

  • To marshal and sustain mental energy
    • The child acts on her own curiosity; she engages in inquiry.
    • The child persists.
    • The child invests increasing amounts of time and energy on her work.
    • The child reflects on her own process and its results.
    • The child takes on problems with a disposition toward solving them.
    • The child seeks challenge.        
  • To represent
    • The child expects to and trusts that she can express her ideas through the hundred languages.
    • The child uses a variety of media to explore and articulate ideas.
    • The child develops and continues to hone a reasonable “satisfaction bar.”
    • The child uses graphic (drawing, painting, sculpting, constructing, etc.) and temporal (through music, role play, and oral language) representation to clarify her point of view and communicate it to others.
  • To work in increasingly collaborative ways
    • The child engages in conversation for the co-construction of theory.
    • The child articulates her own hypotheses and theories.
    • The child invites others to collaborate.
    • The child “hears” the ideas of others and considers multiple perspectives in working toward a shared goal.
    • The child participates in the “aesthetic dimension” of collaborative project work, which includes putting aside ownership of the piece for ownership of the common purpose.
    • The child incorporates the ideas of others into her own representational work.
  • To be intellectually and aesthetically awake
    • The child is a protagonist in her own learning.
    • The child pursues a question or a problem.
    • The child seeks to innovate and invent.
    • The child develops flexibility of thinking.
    • The child experiences joy in learning.
    • The child participates in the informal exchange of ideas verbally and through symbolic representation.

Oken-Wright 2007; rev. Jan. 2010 and November 2010.