Intellectual virtues are those which are encouraged all the way through our school experiences, both academic and non-academic. These include autonomy and the pursuit of knowledge, truth and understanding.
The delivery of a high quality academic curriculum is key to enabling students to develop their pursuit of knowledge and applying skills from what they have learnt before.
Critical thinking, reasoning, curiosity and judgement are all virtues that we aim to cultivate through our curriculum and that, as teachers, we actively pursue. However, we must think about these in the wider context of life outside of school, or academics. It is important that students have the opportunity to develop these virtues in a non-academic way.
Sometimes this virtue can be the difference between students wondering about concepts or finding wonder and awe in what is being delivered. This sense of wonder can encourage many of the intellectual virtues to be used.
Reflection is also an important part of this building block. As teachers we are encouraged through our training to reflect on how our lessons have gone, how we dealt with student issues and our interactions with colleagues and parents. Encouraging this practice in our students will enable them to understand choices they have made and paths they may wish to follow, based on experiences.