My copy of Ms. Miller’s Habits of Mind, standing watch on my office bulletin board.
In the fall 1991, my tenth-grade year, I took an English composition class with Ms. Betsy Miller. Her class was the first class I ever took that only dealt with writing, and she ran it as a writer’s workshop: we kept journals, read, wrote papers, discussed them, edited each other’s work. She was a passionate and dedicated teacher who put in countless hours outside the school day: she joked once that as she lugged a carton full of our work out to the parking lot, Mr. Van Fossen, our geometry teacher, would walk by empty-handed and jingle his keys at her.
Ms. Miller was in her mid-30s when I knew her, and was one of those “cool” teachers: stylishly-dressed, with a house in Columbus’ Victorian Village, and progressive in her outlook—just try to call her Miss Miller or Mrs. Miller! Her approach was frank, direct, and honest. She was able to set us at ease with her and with each other, which was crucial, because we would be sharing our writing with our classmates as we edited each other’s work, and discussed it in class. I hope that students come to college having had teachers like her and find more like her once they are there.
One day, as a journal prompt, Ms. Miller handed out a list of Habits of Mind. I love lists, and taped my copy into my journal, and wrote about it, not just in class that day, but off and on throughout the semester. At the end of the term, when composition turned into British Literature, which I took from a different teacher, I carefully removed my copy of Habits of Mind from my journal and put it in the back page of my planner, and from there to my bedroom wall. When I went to college, I left it at my parents’ house, but I kept thinking about it. It had made its mark on me.
The years passed. At some point after the dawn of social media, I reconnected with Ms. Miller—now married to one of her colleagues (although she kept her maiden name), and retired from teaching. I mentioned Habits of Mind, and how I would like to share it with my students, thinking she could just email me the file. Instead, a few days later, an envelope arrived with a hard copy, printed in early-90s Macintosh type. I was immediately transported back to her classroom in the south wing of my high school. It is stapled to my bulletin board in my office as I type these words.
I still think Habits of Mind is a pretty good list of the things a college-educated person should do. I often tell my students that their goal should be to get an education, not just a degree, and to me, an education means this set of behaviors: thoughtfulness, curiosity, self-discipline are the virtues that are behind this list, but the list itself is a set of tools that a person will need to navigate whatever future might be ahead. After a certain number of years, the facts we learn and teach in a course will be out of date: practices change, skills become obsolete, technology moves forward, and older research is supplanted by new. But these two dozen habits are timeless, and making them habits makes us permanently interesting and forever prepared to make our contribution.
Ms. Miller certainly made hers.