Marysville High School has made it a focus this year to adopt and integrate specific habits of mind into the building culture.   Habits of mind are defined as dispositions that are skillfully and mindfully employed by characteristically intelligent, successful people when they are confronted with problems, the solutions to which are not immediately apparent. In essence, we want to support and foster student growth, success, and learning by integrating these habits of mind in the classrooms, hallways, and culture at Marysville High School.  Students, as we all do, are faced with challenges big and small on a daily basis and how they face these challenges will define their short and long term success in life. If we can provide students with the tools and skills necessary to overcome adversity of any type, they can be successful in the future.  

      To begin, our staff created a Portrait of a Graduate (POG). The POG defines what skills we want our graduates to obtain during their years at MHS in order to be successful after graduation.  As defined, we stated a Marysville Graduate is: civically responsible, a skilled communicator, an effective collaborator, and an innovative thinker. Our next step was to identify which research based habits of mind best supported those skills.  Our staff collaborated, discussed, and selected the MHS habits of mind as: persisting, managing impulsivity, listening with understanding and empathy, thinking flexibly and open to continuous learning, questioning and problem posing. We have actively integrated these habits of mind into our building throughout the year.  

      We have our habits of mind displayed around the building and in all of our classrooms.  Teachers are formally embedding them in their lessons and informally having conversations about them with students.  In addition, we have developed a Habits of Mind committee made up of staff members who select and recognize students who are exhibiting the Habits of Mind in our building.  These students are nominated by our staff members for a specific habit of mind that they exhibited. We select monthly HOM award winners and invite them to a luncheon and display their picture on our HOM board.  It has been very impactful and rewarding to be able to see how proud students are as they are recognized for their accomplishments. They also set a great example for other students in the building as we attempt to positively impact our school culture.  

      The Habits of Mind also support our commitment to our students as they look towards the future.  At Marysville High School we are intent on dedicating ourselves to making sure each student has a goal and plan in place when they graduate from MHS.  To that end, we are displaying these commitments on a board in our cafeteria. It is our goal that each Senior is represented and that they have selected a commitment to a two or four year college, trade school, apprenticeship, military, workforce, or some other specific goal after graduation.  Our charge moving forward is to support each student and their goals and prepare them to be successful in the real world by providing them with the skills, mindset, and experiences that set them up to achieve, no matter their path.