If you look past the standard syllabus spiel, most of college isn’t actually about memorizing facts for an exam: it’s about learning how to think when you’re handed a problem with no obvious answer. At Plymouth State, that process gets broken down into four core General Education “Habits of Mind,” and evaluating where you actually stand on them is a reality check. Starting with Purposeful Communication, I believe I am able to use and understand this habit of mind well in my work at this point in my college career. I do tend to understand the context of the material; being a social science major with a focus on anthropology has helped me in this regard. In these subjects, we use old material and learn how to use it as well. This breakdown has definitely boosted my ability to be aware! I am able to communicate my understanding of materials, though I do not excel in this. Once again, my usual subjects help me with the ability to communicate understanding, and I definitely can, but I can also improve this ability to show my understanding more in depth. I want to say I do well with finding quotations and examples from sources. I do know I can improve my understanding of these sources in order to find better quotations or identify examples more quickly than I currently do. Recognizing others’ perspectives may be beneficial to communicating a message is something I think I am able to do; I tend to be a good listener, and in classes where I’ve had debates or group projects, group papers, etc. I’ve always been able to sit back and take in others’ views while still applying my own.
Problem-Solving is one of the habits of mind I am a little less confident about. Take plan development, for example; I am able to describe the components of most problems I am faced with. I think I am also able to notice most of the challenges when it comes to solving these problems. However, I have less of an easy time developing plans to navigate the challenges and solve the problems at the same time. Past the plan-making, once I do have an approach, most of the time I stick to it and use that plan/approach to solve my problems. I can improve on that skill, though. I notice I find myself getting lost in my own plan sometimes! The last signpost of this habit of mind is something I think I can do well. I tend to look back at my work or a problem I’ve solved and think hard on it: “Is this right? Does this make sense? How could I have done this better?” I think this is one of the skills that has helped me most in this habit of mind.
Integrated Perspective is a habit of mind but also a way of thinking I have learned about in many of my classes. I believe that repeated learning has helped me time and time again to remember and understand what it means and incorporate integrated perspective into my own ideas. I think that, especially through the ethical lens taken by anthropologists and students like me who are learning about anthropology, has engraved these ideas of influence by culture, personal experience, and the importance of context to a situation, regardless of whether or not you have it. My social justice classes with Abby Goode, sustainability with Brian Eisenhauer, etc. have all helped me learn to connect decisions and actions with the larger social world and nature. In her essay “Slow Interdisciplinarity,” Abby Goode says that genuine learning “calls us to be mindful, respectful, and curious about each other’s disciplinary perspectives” rather than rushing through a “hasty interdisciplinary mania” just to check off course requirements. She emphasizes that interdisciplinary thinking “is a dynamic process, and it is slower than we think,” which really clicked for me. Books like Braiding Sweetgrass or assigned readings from these classes have focused so much on taking time to understand complex issues instead of expecting fast answers. I will admit I didn’t really understand at first, but by now I think I’ve realized I was sort of doing this all along; now, after learning about it, I can use/think about this skill/idea consciously. Lastly, for this habit of mind, I think I have sort of covered it already, but I think I am able to express my own perspective well while listening to others and actually taking that further and applying it to my own perspective without just listening and disregarding it. I like group projects, and I think this is part of it. I work well with others when we all apply ourselves in this way!
Self-Regulated Learning is something I can do and try to do well, but I do not always meet my own standards. I do strive to meet my learning goals and criteria and evaluation goals required in my courses. I do meet them. However, I know I can do more than that and do not always push myself as far as I maybe should or can. This second signpost under this habit of mind, “Engagement in the Learning Process,” is something I do: I “recognize that acquiring new knowledge and skills requires commitment to the learning process,” but I don’t think I pursue that recognition to where I should. I’ve never failed to pursue this to the level it should be at (the level of recognition I need to acquire the skills to do my work). But as I said before, I recognize how much knowledge I should be acquiring to push myself even further, and I don’t quite push myself as far as I should be to consider myself climbing in this area. The last of the three signposts in Self-Regulated Learning is something I do better than the first two. I believe I am able to identify my own strengths and weaknesses as a learner and navigate around or with them to aid myself in learning, especially when it comes to research/writing. I have my own ways of doing some things others may find unconventional, but through college I have developed them, and sometimes just in one class where I do one thing my own way.
Looking back at all four of these Habits of Mind, I can see where my strengths are and where I still need to push myself. Taking anthropology and social science classes has really helped me get comfortable looking at context and understanding different views, but I know I still have work to do when it comes to making flexible plans or pushing past my own baseline standards in a class. Taking time to actually break down where I am at basecamp versus where I am climbing gives me a pretty clear idea of what to focus on for the rest of my time at Plymouth State.
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