GrahamCrackers can Blog

How can the human mind work at its most efficient, prime, and outstanding state?  According to the author of Discovering and Exploring Habits of Mind, Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick, there are certain habits that can help accomplish that.

• Persisting- According to the text people who persist “Have a repertoire and employ a range of alternative approaches.”  The authors also say, “If one strategy doesn't work, they know how to back and try another.”
• Thinking Flexibly- In the text one of the important features to thinking flexibly is, “Trusting their subconscious to continue creative and productive work of on it.”

One observation I made about this passage was that persisting and thinking flexibly contradict, in persisting Discovering and Exploring Habits of Mind says that you must stick to the problem try different techniques to solve the problem, yet in thinking flexibly you need to move on and let your subconscious take care of the problem.  I believe there is a breaking point where people should stop persisting and come back to the problem later.Having these traits among others need to be balance and work in harmony in order to have the best possible mind

 Another problem in the actual text was every entry started with good problems, this seemed very redundant.


Another book that I read, I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak had a main character with these qualities. The main character, Ed, was an average guy, he had to dig deep and use these habits of the mind to solve other peoples problems along with his own.