Every so often, as I walk the streets of Chelsea, Massachusetts, I run into a grown-up former student asking me if I still sing the “Brave Artist” song. “Yes!” I say, and for a moment we revel in a shared memory from 20 years ago, when they got an award for taking a risk and working with a mistake and wrote their name on our art room’s wall of fame. From the very outset of my career in small urban Chelsea, I noticed the tendency for some children to say, “I can’t draw.” This was heartbreaking, since children are naturally free artists. Something must have gotten between them and that freedom. So to preempt this, I developed the story of a fictional character called Ol’ Blue Face, who kept messing up, crumpling up their paper and throwing it across the room… Until one glorious day when they decided to turn their mistake into something new. Ol’ Blue Face reveled in a new sense of accomplishment and was finally liberated from the idea that art has to be perfect right away. In the story, the whole class cheered and put Ol’ Blue Face up on their shoulders. One shy student even made up a song on the spot. I called this the “Brave Artist,” and it’s been at the heart of every classroom I’ve ever taught. So after basking in our shared memory from years ago, I tell the grown-up former student, “You know, now we have more characters like the Brave Artist. We call them the HOMies.”

After using the Brave Artist for many years with great results, I wondered how I could reward other traits that were helpful to young artists. What about the act of creating something unique? What about the grit to keep refining and improving one’s work? In 2010, I came across the book Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education (Hetland et al., 2007), which identified eight habits of mind that artists exhibit and employ. Lightbulbs of recognition illuminated my mind. Inspired by that book, I expanded my characters to eight, calling them the HOMies, as an acronym for Habits of Mind.

Then, in 2014, two acquaintances of mine, a mathematics education consultant and a child psychologist, told me they were thinking of starting a math-art camp. Would I be interested in joining? The light bulbs in my mind brightened. For years, I had been tacitly exploring the intuition that learning math and learning art were similar in many ways. In my free time, I began researching this intersection, and we slowly began developing a math-art curriculum. I had long suspected that the habits of mind employed in art class were transferable to other subjects. After all, it isn’t just visual artists that need to observe deeply and attend to patterns. We decided to call our program “Da Vinci’s Notebook”, and we used the HOMies as inspiration as we encouraged our students to find the connections below the surface of seemingly separate subjects. I even dressed up as “Neo Leo,” the long-lost ancestor of the original renaissance man.

By now the HOMies have evolved and matured, informed by the Standards of Mathematical Practice, the Science and Engineering Practices, the ELA Common Core Portrait of a Graduate (Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2017), and other frameworks from across the school disciplines. The HOMies are a set of eight characters that each embodies the shared habits of mind that writers, mathematicians, scientists, artists and others call upon in order to be successful in their field.

Whether we teach them or not, young people develop mental models of almost everything in the world. We can help make those mental models rich and flexible by explicitly teaching them and then repeatedly referring to them. The HOMies are an example of a mental model that is made to be memorable and relatable. They are meant to be internalized so they can act as a shorthand for the myriad aspects of learning. When we speak about a child lacking “background knowledge,” we are often speaking about a lack of a sophisticated or appropriate schema on which to hang new information. As my principal said in one of our HOMies meetings, when looking for a way to clarify a new idea, a teacher or student could say, “I’m gonna hang it on this HOMie.” This way, teachers can leverage the background knowledge of the HOMies to enhance students’ understanding of which skill sets they are exercising in the moment. In this chapter, I will briefly describe each HOMie, how we have used them in my classes, and describe how my whole school is currently integrating the HOMies across the subjects. The eight HOMies are Brave One, Stellar Storyteller, Triple Practicer, Inventor Innovator, Captain of the Clouds, Eagle Eye Detective, Maven, and Inspector Reflector.

A collage of 8 posters labeled brave one, stellar storyteller, eagle eye detective, captain of the clouds, triple practicer, the Maven, inventor innovator, and inspector reflector.

Being a Stellar Storyteller means using your subject to communicate an idea or feeling. It means you take the elements and move them around in an intentional way. This could be arranging the elements of a collage, a poem, or even a mathematical proof.

As an art teacher, my highest goal has been to empower my students to use art, how and when they want, as a tool for self-expression. I want my students to feel the same freedom and fearlessness I felt when, as a teenager, I would wander the streets of Hartford, Connecticut, or the woods of its suburbs, with a sketchbook under my arm, stopping to pepper the pages with sketches, words, and ideas. The quality of the entries is not important. What matters is the expression, the processing, and the forging of identity. In some ways, the Stellar Storyteller is the bridge to all the other HOMies. It is the way we find our voice. Working in Chelsea, Massachusetts, a tiny but over-crowded city with a high poverty rate, many of whose families speak another native language and have low social capital, finding this voice feels doubly important.

As the HOMies permeate into more areas of our school, several teachers have utilized the Stellar Storyteller to motivate students to effectively communicate. Our reading specialist now uses a customized version of the Stellar Storyteller in her student-friendly “Retelling Rubric.” We worked together to place images of the Stellar Storyteller into the existing rubric, as a toddler for “Not Yet,” a child for “Partially,” and a fully-grown Stellar Storyteller for “I was a Stellar Storyteller.” Another simple way that teachers are incorporating the HOMies into their existing lesson plans is by naming the HOMies in the objective. A recent 2nd grade example is: “I will be a Stellar Storyteller and explain orally and/or in writing how I represented and solved the problem.”

Throughout my 20-plus years here, I have seen relatively little change in the demographics of our classroom teachers and our students. I still look forward to the day when our students can take their rightful place as our replacements, becoming the teachers and the school leaders. In order to get there, the students must be able to communicate confidently, speaking truth to power whenever they need to.

The Triple Practicer embodies a growth mindset and a rage to master, working patiently to improve their skills. They know the importance of slowing down and giving their body a chance to learn new skills at its own pace.

By the time a rigorous picture of neuroplasticity developed in the first decade of the twenty-first century (Ericsson & Pool, 2017), most of us had already internalized a fixed mindset, the subtle (or not-so-subtle) notion that some people are just (for example) “math people” or “art people.” Like all our biases, this belief is largely subconscious (Kahneman, 2011). Without realizing it, we are reinforcing it to ourselves and our students on a daily basis. Teachers will sometimes tell me, when picking up their students, something like “I can’t draw to save my life.” The same narrative is common for mathematics. Somewhere along the line, many of us learned that it was safer to label ourselves out of trying something new. (We wouldn’t allow them to say I’m not a reading person. Why is that? This is one reason I often say that the HOMies are “secretly for the grownups.”)

When presenting a HOMie to a class, I share the “Key 3”—the three central aspects of the HOMie. Each one comes with a “Microchallenge,” a short activity to give the flavor of the HOMie. I’ve been told that they are fun, but surprisingly challenging. I repeatedly emphasize that the grown ups need to join in on the Microchallenges, so that the students can see them falter and work through difficulties. In a way, this is the “secret sauce” of the HOMies: Teachers and students engaged in a productive struggle with something that pushes them just a little out of their comfort zone. Triple Practicer Microchallenges include the “Mirror Maze”, in which folks must first do a guided maze drawing, and then go through the maze, looking at it in reverse with a mirror or phone. This reminds me of a YouTube video I saw of people trying to ride a “reverse bicycle,” which is made so that one must turn in the opposite direction one wants to go. The interesting thing about it is that it’s easier to learn if you don’t already know how to ride a bike. This feeling of awkwardness, where muscle memory can’t help you, is an important feeling for all of us to sit in regularly. It not only forces our brains to adapt and remain supple, but it humbles us, reminding us what it feels like to be a struggling student.

The Inventor Innovator uses the resources at hand to make novel connections.

I sometimes use the example of the birth of hip hop. In early 1970s New York City, the Bronx had been split by an expressway and blighted by urban renewal. There was limited access to traditional musical instruments, education, and resources. Parties and DJing were popular. One DJ, Kool Herc, decided to just play the “breaks,” of a song, the funky drum bits without singing. His MC, Coke La Rock, decided to “rap” over the breaks. The crowd went wild (Chang et al., 2021). A new form of music was invented by working with these constraints and being open to novel connections (Kahneman, 2011).

One of the Microchallenges for Inventor Innovators is called “Go!!” Participants first draw (or trace with a coin) four rows of five circles. In just three minutes, they must try to turn each circle into something different. As with some of the other Microchallenges, we make a big deal of the timer and the pressure. This is aimed at building adrenaline and short circuiting the editing mind. There is simply no time to think about whether each idea is feasible or original. It’s just go go go!

One way of celebrating this type of divergent thinking throughout our school is through HOMie Badges. The Inventor Innovator badge, which is printed in color on cardstock, says simply, “I invented something new… I’m an Inventor Innovator.” When a student comes up with a new idea or way of doing something, the teacher can quickly give them a badge. It is important to note they can be given to a student who is not necessarily following directions. If we recognize this student in the moment in a really clear way, we are acknowledging divergent solutions, thereby expanding the limited definition of achievement that is consciously or unconsciously promoted in our school.

The Captain of the Clouds leverages the immense power of visualization.

In art class, we’ve always had the freedom to practice and champion visualizing things in our mind. But this is a superpower for all subjects! And it can be practiced and improved. Our visual memory is orders of magnitude better than our memory for words or names and is part of our inherited legacy: It has the potential to help us soar to new heights in mathematics, writing, and other subjects. Memory and imagination/visualization are two sides of the same ability, both using the same parts of the brain (Foer, 2012). Often when we are imagining something, we are combining images from our memory in novel ways (Mendelsund, 2014).

Frequently in my art room, I make up a story—something I know will capture the students’ attention, because as I tell it, I myself am immersed in and really inside of the story. As I have the students close their eyes, listen, and visualize, we are then imagining together. After the story is finished, I ask them to draw whatever it was they envisioned.

One of our former 3rd grade teachers, Will Chapman-Hale, describes how he uses the Captain of the Clouds in his classroom:

“Math word problems are a perennial struggle for elementary students. One strategy teachers can use to support students is to coach them in ‘Start / Change / Result’. That is, to see the problem as a story about a quantity of something in the mind’s eye: How much of something is there at the start of the problem? How does it change (e.g. is the amount divided equally among friends, or is some taken or given away)? How much is there at the end? When students get comfortable visualizing this sequence of mathematical events, they can start to use it more flexibly, working backwards from a resultant quantity and its change in order to derive the starting amount. Not only does this ground the problem in reality (connecting visual memories); it makes it approachable and even fun!”

As part of our whole-school implementation of the HOMies, my principal (a vital thought partner in this work) has added a segment to the morning announcements: Talk About A HOMie Tuesday, or TAHTU. In these, he briefly summarizes two of the HOMies, making connections to everyday life. In a recent TAHTU, he encouraged to be Captains of the Clouds, as he guided them in picturing a few HOMies.

The Eagle Eye Detective encourages us to look longer and more closely, finding nuance and details that others miss.

In my art class, we have a unit called “Zoom.” We first look at the work of Georgia O’Keeffe, projecting some of her large close-up abstractions of nature on the whiteboard. We then go outside, armed with jeweler’s loupes (short plastic tubes with small magnifying glasses at the end). Students disperse and wander around the small area of nature outside our urban school, “zooming in” on tree bark, insects, leaves, and other objects that catch their interest. This is usually an exuberant affair, as the students surprise and inspire each other by calling attention to things they never noticed before. We discovered that by putting a jeweler’s loupe in front of my iPhone lens, I can take pictures of what students find. We later project the image onto the white board.

A close-up view of a few children standing next to a tree. One of them stands next to the tree and looks closely at the tree with what appears to be a magnifying lens.

After discussions about composition, students begin to crop and draw sections of their nature object using O’Keeffe’s work as a model. These become paintings and full works of art. Is this an “art lesson?” Is it a science lesson? Is this an “interdisciplinary lesson”? To me, it is deeper than that. It is a lesson on the habit of mind of looking closely, noticing what others miss. As with the other HOMies, this way of engaging with the world is not subject specific. I deeply believe we owe it to our students and ourselves to center such universal habits and approaches. We should model and practice the often skipped step of “just looking” in beholding any object of interest, be it a painting, a theory, Nature, a poem: It is the step where awe and inspiration happen.

In a first-grade math lesson, students were called upon to be Eagle Eye Detectives to find the “missing part” in word problems. This involves looking closely at what is there in order to find what isn’t there. This requires curiosity and interest, as well as patience and discernment, all key aspects of the Eagle Eye Detective.

Actually, it’s my father who taught me the value of the first step: SIMPLY LOOKING. He would linger in front of a single artwork for over five minutes, in silence. In art class, we try to make time for this. I use a pointer to simply let the students’ eyes “wander around the artwork like an ant.” This seemingly inane activity is what I believe is missing in our wall-to-wall scheduling of activities. Reverence for what is there. Bare attention. The rest of the ladder of inference follows, ascending from naming, labeling, and narrating the work, but it all starts with just looking (Edwards, 2012; McGilchrist, 2012). Can we be brave enough to value and practice this in all subjects, from mathematics, to writing, to reading, to science to music… teaching. Really seeing our students as they are in the moment… to see the way, in a certain sense, that they are just perfect.

The Maven embodies deep love and knowledge of a subject. The Maven is passionate about a subject, and they relish learning the “tricks of the trade.”

In art class, in our “Dream House” unit, we look at Chelsea buildings to get ideas for our own designs. This process reminds us that art and design are all around us, waiting to inspire us if we pay attention. Later in the process, students pretend they’re real estate agents, guiding classmates through their architectural designs.

Here again, Will Chapman-Hale very eloquently describes how being a Maven is useful in reading and writing: “Author studies are a wonderful example of being a Maven. A literacy unit that studies the work of one author in depth enables students to understand the author’s style: how the author uses language, or uses character development to convey themes, and what themes are important to the author. Students can try their hand at figurative language similar to the author’s, or try to write using inner monologue to reveal a character’s emotional journey. These practices reinforce the idea that it’s not just ok, but encouraged, to study the professionals and try out their tricks in order to develop one’s own skills.”

One of my favorite parts about being an art teacher is getting to create art alongside my students. Is this authentic discovery less possible in other subjects, or have we just convinced ourselves that it is?

An Inspector Reflector is one who takes the time to look back at their own work or the work of peers in order to make it even stronger. They celebrate the iterative process of learning and creating, of revising one’s work and taking feedback with a genuine desire to improve.

In art class, Zeinab’s painting is up on the wall, and there are two other artists who have also finished. “Can you give Zeinab some advice?” I ask. Steven gestures to her painting and says, “I see you added shadow in the background… and… water…” I go on to say, “I had given her this black oil pastel… I don’t know if there’s a place where she could use it…” Without touching the paper, he traces an area with his finger. Another student, Jared, interjects: “I feel like she should retrace these lines, so they make it… pop out a little bit.” Zeinab takes her painting down from the wall, eager to act on this new feedback.

By now, the HOMies have spread to all classes in our school. All teachers are now explicitly using the HOMies in lesson plans, and students and teachers alike are shouting out the HOMies in themselves and each other. Recently, I taught the HOMies to whole-grade levels in the gym. To reflect upon and gauge their understanding of the HOMies, the students and teachers each completed a couple of HOMies matching tasks. We also discussed a few specific scenarios (from actual teachers). They included: “At school meeting I want to highlight community members or families that exemplify the blocks of success” and, “A student and I were browsing an atlas and she used what she learned from our conversation in her fictional story.” As a group, we then discussed which HOMie each scenario best exemplified.

There has long been a social power asymmetry in my district: a virtually all-white, middle-income staff teaching a virtually all Latinx lower-income student body (though in the past few years, central office has worked hard to diversify the staff, with encouraging results). It has suffered from what I call “Boston Racism,” which is a general, and perhaps unconscious, lack of respect for Black and Latinx people. The subtle racism of low expectations, the lack of surprise that things never change and the cordial silencing of original student voices, has historically kept our school and district quietly in the doldrums of low achievement and vague, barren ambitions.

In my school, we use a framework called the Pyramid of Success. This was developed by the famed UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. It encourages such traits as Loyalty, Determination, Hard Work and Skill. To be clear, the Pyramid of Success motivates and rewards countless students, bringing joy and a sense of belonging to our school. However, as is the case with many “character-building” frameworks, it is rooted in something like the American Dream. The thrust of the program is that students should be kind, follow directions, try their best and work together as a team. In fact, four of the fifteen traits seem to aim specifically at that: Loyalty, Team Spirit, Cooperation, and Friendship. This is an understandable focus for a framework developed by a winning basketball coach, but in the context of helping students develop authentic voice and agency so they can rise out of poverty, it falls short. Furthermore, when looked at through the lens of the power asymmetry mentioned above, the underlying message and de facto effects of such “character-building” frameworks can appear at best insufficient, and at worst tone deaf or cruel.

The HOMies are intended to stand as a school-wide framework that acknowledges the character traits at the heart of learning: Actionable and inspiring thinking habits that students can embody in order to gain more agency and maintain their individuality in the face of a stark and stagnant power imbalance. So rather than going in the obvious direction of social justice lip service, the act of incorporating the HOMies framework into students’ everyday learning is itself a revolutionary process, because the HOMies get at the innermost frontier of social justice—the way the students see themselves, and the way the teachers are made to see the students. The HOMies empower by permitting the existing power within each student—their own innovative mind—to flourish, express itself, and be recognized.

Real equity means not short-changing our brilliant students by structuring out the place and space of discovery. The hope of the HOMies is that students can get excited about their own minds and that the adults can in turn gain not just excitement, but also humility toward their magnificent students. If we actually want schools to be incubators of genuine creativity, we have to first acknowledge that we do not know what it is. By definition, genuine creativity is the unknown—even to the adults (Ghiselin, 1985). What if our students are already wired for that genuine discovery? They’re the R & D department of the human race! (Gopnik, 2011).

This world is run by those whose stories prevail and by those who best leverage the languages. We all deserve to speak the languages of coding, mathematics, writing, history, art, music, and other subjects. I believe that what we want above all for our next generation is that they can express themselves with love and honesty, even in novel situations. A truly democratic school equips all students with the courage to use the subjects to express themselves and affect their community, to champion their own story and change the world.