Habits of Mind: Growing Thinkers, Doers, and World-Changers at Oddball Academy

If you’ve spent any time inside Oklahoma classrooms—or if you’ve watched the headlines—you know something is deeply wrong with our education system. We are ranked 50th in the nation, and the consequences show up everywhere: students who feel disconnected from learning, teachers burning out, and entire industries begging for skilled problem-solvers who simply aren’t coming out of our schools fast enough.

As an education enthusiast, special education advocate, and the founder of Oddball Academy, I refuse to accept this as “just the way things are.” Because I know—personally and professionally—that children are capable of extraordinary things when we give them the right tools and the right environment.

And that’s why Habits of Mind are at the heart of everything we do.

Why Habits of Mind?

Developed by Art Costa and Bena Kallick, the 16 Habits of Mind are not just teaching strategies—they’re life strategies. They’re the mental muscles that empower children to grow as thinkers, leaders, and lifelong learners.

At Oddball Academy, we intentionally weave these habits into every lesson, workshop, and STEM challenge we create. That means children learn to:

• Persist through challenges (even when that robot really doesn’t want to cooperate)

• Listen with empathy to teammates who think differently

• Think flexibly and use metacognition (“What if I try it another way?”)

• Ask powerful, curious questions that lead to discovery

• Strive for accuracy because excellence matters

• Take responsible risks and embrace the unknown

• Create, imagine, and innovate with confidence

• Think interdependently as teammates and collaborators

These aren’t just academic skills.

These habits shape not just how kids learn, but who they become.

Why This Matters in Oklahoma—Right Now

Oklahoma is sitting on one of the most extraordinary workforce opportunities in the country.

We are home to booming sectors in:

• Aviation

• Aerospace

• Advanced manufacturing

• Information technology

• Energy engineering

• Automation and robotics

These fields are rapidly expanding—but our talent pipeline isn’t. We simply don’t have enough engineers, mechanics, technicians, computer programmers, or STEM-skilled problem solvers to meet the demand.

And this gap starts long before college.

It starts in childhood, with the messages kids hear about who they are, what they’re capable of, and what careers “belong” to them.

My Why: From a Cuban Mechanic’s Daughter to a First-Generation College Graduate

My passion for this work comes from lived experience.

I’m a first-generation college graduate, raised by:

• a Cuban immigrant father, a brilliant mechanic who could fix anything placed in front of him, and

• a military-raised mother who taught me resilience, discipline, and creativity.

But growing up in the 1990s, girls were still pushed toward what I call “girl jobs.”

We weren’t encouraged to pick up a wrench, join the robotics team, or imagine ourselves building airplanes or writing code.

And I can’t help but wonder…

If Oddball Academy existed 25 years ago,

how many more women would be engineers today?

How many mechanics, technicians, electricians, coders, and innovators would Oklahoma already have?

Instead, we have vacancies—thousands of them—because the system wasn’t built to nurture real problem-solvers.

It was built to control classrooms, not cultivate thinkers.

Oddball Academy Is Filling That Gap

We are building the kind of learning environment I wish I had as a child.

A place where:

• curiosity is celebrated

• mistakes are welcomed

• neurodiverse thinkers thrive

• hands get dirty

• teamwork is everything

• STEM is accessible, joyful, and empowering

And most importantly, a place where every child—regardless of background—learns to see themselves as a creator, an inventor, a builder, a scientist, a leader.

Because Oklahoma doesn’t just need more workers.

We need more thinkers.

We need more doers.

We need more oddballs.

The Call to Action

If we want a future where Oklahoma is not 50th but first—in opportunity, innovation, and education—then we must equip our children with more than worksheets and test prep.

We must give them the Habits of Mind.

We must give them experiences that build character, creativity, resilience, and agency.

We must give them places like Oddball Academy.

Because the future of Oklahoma’s STEM workforce isn’t built in college.

It’s built in childhood…

one curious question, one wild idea, one responsible risk at a time.