Social Learning

A 15-year-old boy is walking through a swirling fog on his way to school when a voice calls out, "Come here. We need to talk." Out of the mist emerges an old man with a white beard. He is a fantastic figure, as wizardly as Merlin, as wise as Socrates, as peaceful as Buddha. Whoever he is, the old man has appeared on that very day to change the boy's life. "You are old enough to learn about things," he says mysteriously. "And who is going to teach you but me?" The old man gives the boy four days of "soul training", a time of riddles, tricks, parables, and incredible twists.

In this expansion of her 2017 commencement speech at her hometown Langley High, Lauren Graham reflects in her hilarious, relatable voice on growing up, pursuing your dreams, and living in the here and now. "Whatever path you choose, whatever career you decide to go after, the important thing," she writes, "is that you keep finding joy in what you're doing, especially when the joy isn't finding you." She reminds us to be curious and compassionate, no matter where life takes you.

If you're the parent of a "smart but scattered" teen, trying to help him or her grow into a self-sufficient, responsible adult may feel like a never-ending battle. Now you have an alternative to micromanaging, cajoling, or ineffective punishments. This positive guide provides a science-based program for promoting teens' independence by building their executive skills - the fundamental brain-based abilities needed to get organized, stay focused, and control impulses and emotions.

New York Times best-selling author Alan Dershowitz presents a persuasive roadmap for achieving a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine. As he did in his widely acclaimed work The Case for Israel, the renowned defender of civil liberties offers compelling, and sometimes controversial, solutions for ending this bloody, divisive conflict.

Sure, some parents are embarrassing - but they’re nothing on this lot. These 10 tales of the world’s most spectacularly silly mums and deliriously daft dads will leave you rocking with laughter. Pinch your nose for Peter Pong, the man with the stinkiest feet in the world...jump out of the way of Harriet Hurry, the fastest mum on two wheels...watch out for Monty Monopolize, the dad who takes all his kids' toys...and oh no, it’s Supermum! Brandishing a toilet brush, a mop and a very bad homemade outfit....

Education is in bad shape in America and beyond today. It’s obvious. Everyone perceives it. Something is going badly wrong in our schools. Our children aren’t learning as they should be. Their mastery of core academic curriculum like reading, writing, history, mathematics, science, and civics has declined to crisis levels and shows no signs of improvement. Meanwhile, they’re all learning to be activists, turning their backs on their nations, societies, and even their parents and religions.

For too long, White educators have relied on people of color to make change to a relentlessly racist school system. Racial equity will not come until White educators recognize their role in supporting racist policies and practices, and take responsibility for dismantling them.

Education can be transformed if we eradicate our fixation on big data like standardized test scores as the supreme measure of equity and learning. Instead of the focus being on “fixing” and “filling” academic gaps, we must envision and rebuild the system from the student up—with classrooms, schools and systems built around students’ brilliance, cultural wealth, and intellectual potential. Street data reminds us that what is measurable is not the same as what is valuable and that data can be humanizing, liberatory and healing.

Exceeding expectations rather than simply satisfying them is the cornerstone of the Disney approach to customer service. Now, in honor of the 10th anniversary of the original Be Our Guest, the Disney Institute, which specializes in helping professionals see new possibilities through concepts not found in the typical workplace, is revealing even more of the business behind the magic of quality service.

A knight at last, Alanna of Trebond heads out to seek adventure in the desert of Tortall. Captured by desert tribesmen, she is forced to prove herself in a magical duel to the death. But her real challenge doesn't come until after she wins. As the first female shaman, Alanna must fight to change the ancient traditions of the stubborn desert tribes, for their own sake and for the sake of all Tortall.

A bonzer (p. 288) discussion of the strange but dinkum (p. 289) pedigree (p. 224) of the naughty (p. 202), nice (p. 212), and, sometimes, obscene (p. 217) English language. We live in a torrent of words — from radio and television, books and newspapers, and now from the internet. But, as Julian Burnside reminds us in this new edition of the bestselling Wordwatching, words are a source both of pleasure and power, and can be deployed for good or for ill.

In Joel's Schwartzberg's 10-plus years as a strategic communications trainer, the biggest obstacle he's come across - one that connects directly to nervousness, stammering, rambling, and epic fail - is that most speakers and writers don't have a point. They typically have just a title, a theme, a topic, an idea, an assertion, a catchphrase, or even something much less. This book shows you how to identify your point, leverage it, stick to it, and sell it and how to train others to identify and successfully make their own points.

James Anderson critically reinterprets the history of southern Black education from Reconstruction to the Great Depression. By placing Black schooling within a political, cultural, and economic context, he offers fresh insights into Black commitment to education, the peculiar significance of Tuskegee Institute, and the conflicting goals of various philanthropic groups, among other matters.

Indigenous oral narratives are an important source for, and component of, Coast Salish knowledge systems. Stories are not only to be recounted and passed down; they are also intended as tools for teaching. Jo-ann Archibald worked closely with Elders and storytellers, who shared both traditional and personal life-experience stories, in order to develop ways of bringing storytelling into educational contexts.

"The Absorbent Mind" by Dr. Maria Montessori, published in 1949, explores the natural development of children and outlines Montessori's innovative educational philosophy. The book introduces the concept of the "absorbent mind," highlighting young children's innate ability to effortlessly absorb information from their surroundings.

One hundred and ten years ago, Maria Montessori, the first female physician in Italy, devised a very different method of educating children, based on her observations of how they naturally learn. In Montessori, Angeline Stoll Lillard shows that science has finally caught up with Maria Montessori. Lillard presents the research behind nine insights that are foundations of Montessori education, describing how each of these insights is applied in the Montessori classroom.

America is in crisis, from the university to the workplace. Toxic ideas first spread by higher education have undermined humanistic values, fueled intolerance, and widened divisions in our larger culture. The Diversity Delusion argues that the root of this problem is the belief in America’s endemic racism and sexism, a belief that has engendered a metastasizing diversity bureaucracy in society and academia.

Charlotte Mason looked at the world and saw that it was governed by universal laws, such as the law of gravity. Then she wondered. What if there were similar laws that governed the way people learn? If we knew what those laws were, we’d be able to pursue education along the most promising lines. She devoted her life to finding the key principles of education and then developing methods to make the most of them. These principles are for everyone concerned with teaching and learning.

Building on the ideas introduced in his New York Times best-selling book, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood, Christopher Emdin introduces an alternative educational model that will help students (and teachers) celebrate ratchet identity in the classroom. Ratchetdemic advocates for a new kind of student identity - one that bridges the seemingly disparate worlds of the ivory tower and the urban classroom.

Two years after being released from Camp Green Lake, Armpit is home in Austin, Texas, trying to turn his life around. But it's hard when you have a record, and everyone expects the worst from you. The only person who believes in him is Ginny, his 10-year-old disabled neighbor. Together, they are learning to take small steps. And he seems to be on the right path, until X-Ray, a buddy from Camp Green Lake, comes up with a get-rich-quick scheme.