November 2019 Bookshelf
Books 14 November 2019
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
Isabel Wilkerson
Educators don’t enter their profession with hopes and dreams that they will lead young people to the promised land of acing standardized exams. Yet, the system they participate in ends up forcing these actions upon them. A source of motivation to break this spell and work toward a transformed future of learning, Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns is a can’t miss book. Wilkerson explores the migration of African-Americans from the South to the North and their collective hope to “reap the full promise of America.” How might their stories inspire you to help transform an education system such that every child can reap the full promise of lifelong learning?
Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life
Nir Eyal
Odds are, as you’re reading this, there is something else crying out for your attention—20 opened tabs, a text message notification, a tv show acting as white noise in the background, or some other technology-driven creation. The battle was lost before you ever started. But, does it always have to be that way? Can you choose to be distraction free, or as Nir Eyal calls it, Indistractible? From raising children to viewing “time management as pain management,” Eyal “provides practical, novel techniques to control your time and attention–helping you live the life you really want.”
Wave
Sonali Deraniyagala
26% of children in the United States will witness or experience a traumatic event before they turn four. One quarter of young people, before they ever engage with their first educator, are already on an uphill battle when it comes to their mental health. Some of these traumatic events can be so incomprehensible we simply have no way of relating to or confidently supporting recovery from such events. Sonali Deraniyagala’s Wave may be of assistance. After losing her parents, children, and husband in one moment, Deraniyagala takes you along her journey on “how to move forward, even if you can never move on”—a contextual shift that could positively impact the young people you serve.
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
David Epstein
Curiosity can at times be crippling for young people and adults alike. There is so much to learn and given our own mortality, there is no way we’ll ever be able to learn or explore it all. However, rather than dwell on what we might miss out on, our curiosity can be our greatest strength. In David Epstein’s Range, he makes this point and then some. In a world that is becoming infinitely more complex, he showcases how, in general, the greatest athletes, authors, business people, inventors, and scientists have reached the tops of their fields thanks to their ability to connect the world together in ways a specialist would never have access to. Let this book be your argument for living an insatiably curious life.
Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries
Safi Bahcall
After celebrating your curiosity and the strengths it gives you, how about taking it to the next level? Loonshots by Safi Bahcall is your call to action. In this intriguing book, Bahcall explores how teams can develop crazy, groundbreaking ideas one minute and reject such thinking the next—and, how to avoid the latter from ever happening at all. As you flip the pages of Loonshots, consider how you can help lead your learning community in staying the course of education transformation and continue exploring the crazy ideas that go far beyond what we know today.
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