Why Don't Students Like School
Daniel T. Willingham
ISBN: 9780470279304
Cognitive science provides answers to how best to teach and motivate students to learn.
I came across this via the footnotes in the book Curious and was surprised to find it actually in our library catalog.
Here Willingham provides 9 discrete cognitive science concepts that are, in his words: "so fundamental to the mind's operation that they do not change as circumstances change" (italics in original) and that meet three other criteria: "using vs ignoring a principle had to have a big impact on student learning" "an enormous amount of data... to support the principle" and the principle had to "suggest classroom applications that teachers might not already know."
Nicely reasoned set of concepts, and a great way to set out your purpose ahead of time.
Here are our principles, by the way, paraphrased wildly by me:
1) People are naturally curious, but we are not good at thinking.
2) Skill is based on a robust platform of "rote" knowledge
3) Memories are formed based on what we think about strongly or very often.
4) Context is key when learning anything new - we relate new things to familiar ones.
5) Practice makes permanent; about 10 years for most areas of study.
6) Novices and Experts think differently, and that's ok.
7) Learning "styles" or "abilities" (ie, kinesthetic or verbal learners) don't matter to learning UNLESS the content is that style (in other words, learning to sing the Star Spangled Banner vs learning ABOUT the Star Spangled Banner).
8) Intelligence is not static - hard work impacts IQ, knowledge base, and thinking skills.
9) Any skill has to be purposefully practiced to improve.
And there you have it.
He goes through each principle in a chapter, and lays out the science, the real-world implications, the applications in a classroom, some basic questions and answers, and why it's important. I love it when authors are systematic and organized like that.
Strongly considering adding this to my personal childhood development collection.
Showing posts with label neuroscience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label neuroscience. Show all posts
Monday, September 15, 2014
Friday, September 12, 2014
Nonfiction: Waking Up, Sam Harris
Waking Up: A guide to spirituality without religion
Sam Harris
ISBN: 9781451636017
Read Sept 10, 2014
Nonfiction: neuroscience, atheism, meditation practice, altered consciousness, the "self"
I don't think I've ever been proselytized by a hard atheist before.
I don't exactly know what to do with this book. I want to like it, but I come away from it much like you would a conversation with a "true believer" or the seriously drug-addicted ("seriously, man... just try it, man... It'll open your EYES, man!"). Harris very much believes what he's saying, and he believes that the evidence supports him, and he believes that if we try meditation, we'll understand it also. It's cool, man, I don't need any koolaid right now, thanks.
It's hard tho - he really does strenuously think that this is all about science and understanding the mind, but then he spends the majority of the book furiously pointing out how science doesn't have a clue (mainly because trying to figure out consciousness is like looking for the Big Bang or the Garden of Eden (depending on your allegiances) - you're working from echoes and ripples and consequences and shadows.) So here's this concept that he wants to present as scientific, but the science isn't there yet, but he's really really passionate about it, so he's just going to present his own personal experiences instead... and that's where it gets a little iffy.
Because anecdotes aren't data. They never will be, they just can't be. For all the time he spent drilling Dr Eben Alexander's "near death experience" (and don't you think for a minute that I didn't enjoy that section IMMENSELY more than any good-hearted person should have - and as a side-note, someone (ahem, Harris) going on about the benefits of boundless love and a sense of oneness with all people should perhaps not seem to enjoy himself quite so much in the process of skewering another fallible human...) he doesn't seem to see that he's done much the same thing with this book: he's presented his own experiences (and to be precise, lots of other people's experiences) as data points. You just can't have it both ways and be fair.
Still, I greatly enjoyed the interesting and quite literal mind-blow that was learning about the precarious nature of consciousness and sense of self. I think it's an interesting quirk of humanity's evolution, and wouldn't it be a laugh if the only thing keeping us from being a species of telepaths and empaths is this strange factory default where we only think that we're all alone inside our heads because our wires run that way?
So, final verdict: I'm glad I read it, but it's more of a polemic than a treatise. Which I think is a bit of a shame, personally.
Sam Harris
ISBN: 9781451636017
Read Sept 10, 2014
Nonfiction: neuroscience, atheism, meditation practice, altered consciousness, the "self"
I don't think I've ever been proselytized by a hard atheist before.
I don't exactly know what to do with this book. I want to like it, but I come away from it much like you would a conversation with a "true believer" or the seriously drug-addicted ("seriously, man... just try it, man... It'll open your EYES, man!"). Harris very much believes what he's saying, and he believes that the evidence supports him, and he believes that if we try meditation, we'll understand it also. It's cool, man, I don't need any koolaid right now, thanks.
It's hard tho - he really does strenuously think that this is all about science and understanding the mind, but then he spends the majority of the book furiously pointing out how science doesn't have a clue (mainly because trying to figure out consciousness is like looking for the Big Bang or the Garden of Eden (depending on your allegiances) - you're working from echoes and ripples and consequences and shadows.) So here's this concept that he wants to present as scientific, but the science isn't there yet, but he's really really passionate about it, so he's just going to present his own personal experiences instead... and that's where it gets a little iffy.
Because anecdotes aren't data. They never will be, they just can't be. For all the time he spent drilling Dr Eben Alexander's "near death experience" (and don't you think for a minute that I didn't enjoy that section IMMENSELY more than any good-hearted person should have - and as a side-note, someone (ahem, Harris) going on about the benefits of boundless love and a sense of oneness with all people should perhaps not seem to enjoy himself quite so much in the process of skewering another fallible human...) he doesn't seem to see that he's done much the same thing with this book: he's presented his own experiences (and to be precise, lots of other people's experiences) as data points. You just can't have it both ways and be fair.
Still, I greatly enjoyed the interesting and quite literal mind-blow that was learning about the precarious nature of consciousness and sense of self. I think it's an interesting quirk of humanity's evolution, and wouldn't it be a laugh if the only thing keeping us from being a species of telepaths and empaths is this strange factory default where we only think that we're all alone inside our heads because our wires run that way?
So, final verdict: I'm glad I read it, but it's more of a polemic than a treatise. Which I think is a bit of a shame, personally.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Nonfiction: Curious, Ian Leslie
Curious: the desire to know and why your future depends on it
Ian Leslie
ISBN: 9780465079964
Read Sept 7, 2014
Interesting read about curiousity, how it works, why it's important, and how it's been regarded historically-speaking.
The author gets a little fired up about "progressive" ideas about education and how they all totally miss the point, which seems to be a bit of axe-grinding. (I'm not contesting his premise that curiosity needs to be fed with regular and quality applications of knowledge, but I am a bit iffy on his emphatic extrapolation that all forms of "progressive" educational policy (montessori, child-led, etc.) are total rubbish that are ruining children's minds.)
The most interesting idea that was presented is a dichotomy between puzzles and mysteries; puzzles having a solid answer, and mysteries being more amorphous or complex or potential-filled to be locked down into something so simple as "an answer."
The notes at the end are also worth checking out - the author doesn't rely on them to explain the book contents (which are taken care of IN the book, a practice I heartily endorse) - but to enhance or travel further down a particular rabbit-hole of interest. I LOVE it when notes are interesting and further the context and information presented.
Finally, a shout-out to the cover. Nicole Caputo should be congratulated for her sparse and striking design, as should Michael Duva of Getty for the picture itself. Simply brilliant.
Ian Leslie
ISBN: 9780465079964
Read Sept 7, 2014
Interesting read about curiousity, how it works, why it's important, and how it's been regarded historically-speaking.
The author gets a little fired up about "progressive" ideas about education and how they all totally miss the point, which seems to be a bit of axe-grinding. (I'm not contesting his premise that curiosity needs to be fed with regular and quality applications of knowledge, but I am a bit iffy on his emphatic extrapolation that all forms of "progressive" educational policy (montessori, child-led, etc.) are total rubbish that are ruining children's minds.)
The most interesting idea that was presented is a dichotomy between puzzles and mysteries; puzzles having a solid answer, and mysteries being more amorphous or complex or potential-filled to be locked down into something so simple as "an answer."
The notes at the end are also worth checking out - the author doesn't rely on them to explain the book contents (which are taken care of IN the book, a practice I heartily endorse) - but to enhance or travel further down a particular rabbit-hole of interest. I LOVE it when notes are interesting and further the context and information presented.
Finally, a shout-out to the cover. Nicole Caputo should be congratulated for her sparse and striking design, as should Michael Duva of Getty for the picture itself. Simply brilliant.
Monday, September 8, 2014
Nonfiction: Happiness by Design, Paul Dolan
Happiness by Design: change what you do, not how you think
Paul Dolan, PhD
ISBN: 9781594632433
Read Sept 5, 2014
First off, it is an excellent premise, and I totally agree. We think about "being" happy, but what makes us happy (or contented, or purposeful) is what we're doing, and how we think about what we're doing. We need to figure out what we think about the most, and DO things that correlate with those thought-patterns (and also provide pleasure or purpose) to work with the architecture of our minds to become happy as a habit, or as a life-pattern, rather than trying to find interesting special occasions or special activities which take effort and often don't work as well as anticipated to impact our happiness.
Secondly (and on a much less happy note) I feel like this book wasn't as powerful as it might have been. My two main concerns are the content value, and the advice value.
For the content, it very strongly feels that this was a series of lectures or inspirational speeches that was heavily padded out into a book. There just wasn't enough substance here for me to really feel like it deserved a full book, and I was shocked at how little was actually in there. The book starts with explaining the study of happiness, the ideas of public policy, and the science behind what we do and how we think. At the halfway mark, we finally get into the "change what you do, not how you think" bit, and I was very ready for the author to get on with it. I would have liked a broader and quicker brush over the current state of affairs and why it isn't working, and a much more robust section on the neuroscience and behavior studies supporting specific ideas for maximizing happiness.
For the advice, to my surprise, even though the title practically promised concrete advice, there was actually very little there as well. In fairness, there was a lot of general advice, which perhaps was what the author preferred, but I've found that people like specifics, especially in what are essentially self-help books. If we were as savvy about our happiness as to already know what we needed to do to be happy, perhaps we would not be reading a book about it for advice, no? Despite having a very intriguing and promising premise, it gets bogged down into digressions on public policy or on attention limits and attention deficits. I think that a breakdown of his advice into more concrete, action-oriented sections, with specific suggestions for activities in each (perhaps geared towards different "personality types" to fine-tune the approach) would have made the second half of the book a lot stronger. An irony is that the author specifically and repeatedly brings up the point that we remember the last bits of something and judge the entirety by the feelings sparked by the ending.
Those are my two main quibbles, and I do think there is a lot of potential here - it just seems to me like potential that would be better met with a TED Talk or a lecture series, or perhaps a Q&A with the author to brainstorm specific ideas for happiness creation, or perhaps a judicious hard edit and restructuring.
Paul Dolan, PhD
ISBN: 9781594632433
Read Sept 5, 2014
First off, it is an excellent premise, and I totally agree. We think about "being" happy, but what makes us happy (or contented, or purposeful) is what we're doing, and how we think about what we're doing. We need to figure out what we think about the most, and DO things that correlate with those thought-patterns (and also provide pleasure or purpose) to work with the architecture of our minds to become happy as a habit, or as a life-pattern, rather than trying to find interesting special occasions or special activities which take effort and often don't work as well as anticipated to impact our happiness.
Secondly (and on a much less happy note) I feel like this book wasn't as powerful as it might have been. My two main concerns are the content value, and the advice value.
For the content, it very strongly feels that this was a series of lectures or inspirational speeches that was heavily padded out into a book. There just wasn't enough substance here for me to really feel like it deserved a full book, and I was shocked at how little was actually in there. The book starts with explaining the study of happiness, the ideas of public policy, and the science behind what we do and how we think. At the halfway mark, we finally get into the "change what you do, not how you think" bit, and I was very ready for the author to get on with it. I would have liked a broader and quicker brush over the current state of affairs and why it isn't working, and a much more robust section on the neuroscience and behavior studies supporting specific ideas for maximizing happiness.
For the advice, to my surprise, even though the title practically promised concrete advice, there was actually very little there as well. In fairness, there was a lot of general advice, which perhaps was what the author preferred, but I've found that people like specifics, especially in what are essentially self-help books. If we were as savvy about our happiness as to already know what we needed to do to be happy, perhaps we would not be reading a book about it for advice, no? Despite having a very intriguing and promising premise, it gets bogged down into digressions on public policy or on attention limits and attention deficits. I think that a breakdown of his advice into more concrete, action-oriented sections, with specific suggestions for activities in each (perhaps geared towards different "personality types" to fine-tune the approach) would have made the second half of the book a lot stronger. An irony is that the author specifically and repeatedly brings up the point that we remember the last bits of something and judge the entirety by the feelings sparked by the ending.
Those are my two main quibbles, and I do think there is a lot of potential here - it just seems to me like potential that would be better met with a TED Talk or a lecture series, or perhaps a Q&A with the author to brainstorm specific ideas for happiness creation, or perhaps a judicious hard edit and restructuring.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Nonfiction: Blue Mind, Wallace J. Nichols
Blue Mind: the surprising science that shows how being near, in, on, or under water can make you happier, healthier, more connected, and better at what you do.
Wallace J. Nichols
ISBN: 9780316252089
Nonfiction: popular science: the therapeutic benefits of various interactions with water.
Interesting book, but despite the footnotes and carefully applied various disciplines and sciences (everything from property valuation to fMRI to sensory-deprivation chambers), it felt a little light-weight. I don't know why - perhaps because most of what was covered falls squarely into common sense. I sympathise with the scientific urge to explain and nail down the whys and wherefores of life, but for something as basic and universal as this, it feels somehow cheap to attempt to pin down specific biological responses and say that those are the reason; to me, that is confusing the mechanism with the motive.
Perhaps in humans, the mechanism and the motive are so interlinked as to be one and the same when looked at through a scientific eye, but in the meantime, as much as I enjoyed reading about the science behind emotional responses, and the peculiar human preferences that make ocean-view penthouses millions of dollars more expensive than their city-view next-door neighbors, I just didn't feel like I was any more renewed or enlightened about my relationship with water, or any more able to advocate for it.
Still, it was a nice enough read, much like floating around on a lazy river loop. The journey is relaxing, even if you don't go anywhere new.
Wallace J. Nichols
ISBN: 9780316252089
Nonfiction: popular science: the therapeutic benefits of various interactions with water.
Interesting book, but despite the footnotes and carefully applied various disciplines and sciences (everything from property valuation to fMRI to sensory-deprivation chambers), it felt a little light-weight. I don't know why - perhaps because most of what was covered falls squarely into common sense. I sympathise with the scientific urge to explain and nail down the whys and wherefores of life, but for something as basic and universal as this, it feels somehow cheap to attempt to pin down specific biological responses and say that those are the reason; to me, that is confusing the mechanism with the motive.
Perhaps in humans, the mechanism and the motive are so interlinked as to be one and the same when looked at through a scientific eye, but in the meantime, as much as I enjoyed reading about the science behind emotional responses, and the peculiar human preferences that make ocean-view penthouses millions of dollars more expensive than their city-view next-door neighbors, I just didn't feel like I was any more renewed or enlightened about my relationship with water, or any more able to advocate for it.
Still, it was a nice enough read, much like floating around on a lazy river loop. The journey is relaxing, even if you don't go anywhere new.
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Nonfiction: You Are Not So Smart / You Are Now Less Dumb, both by David McRaney
Books that originate from blogs are always very interesting to me, especially when they're on a pet topic like neurochemistry, behavior, and psychology.
I read these back to back, on August 5th and August 6th, and I probably should not have - they're a little repetitive even inside themselves, and even more so when compared to each other. I know that it's the type of book where people can be presumed to read chapters at random, or to read the second book before the first, but it was a little jarring.
You are Not So Smart
David McRaney
ISBN: 9781592406593
You are Now Less Dumb
David McRaney
ISBN: 9781592408054
Both Nonfiction; behavioral science and neuro-psychology.
First off, I saw these float through the library, and was really taken by the cover, so congratulations on mastering that specific portion of influence and marketing.
Once inside, the short chapters didn't quite ever get deep enough into the crunchy bits for my taste, but I fully realize I'm an outlier who reads actual journal articles because they're interesting. (They'd be more interesting if statistics weren't as impenetrable to me as Mandarin Chinese, but one must persevere.) The topics were a bit scatter-shot, and I think this more than anything reflects the blogged origins of the book. There just wasn't much connection or build between the chapters, and that is much more reminiscent of a blog, where each post is pretty much taken on it's own unless it specifically references another. In a book, even nonfiction, the ebb and flow of an overall narrative structure (which, ironically enough, is addressed in decent length in both books) makes the journey through the pages (see, I'm even doing it here) seem more enlightening and fulfilling.
It's the difference between those amazing Japanese conveyer-belt eateries, and a good 4 star restaurant.
In the first, you get to pick and choose, and each dish is designed to stand alone. You eat too much because you want a little bit of everything (and if you're American, you waste more than you should by tasting and then not finishing when you didn't like it), you don't really have a set beginning or ending (oooh, I just sat down, but mochi is coming through right now!) and there isn't any exterior cue for you to stop eating (other than the incriminating pile of plates you accumulate) until you finally waddle your satiated way up to pay the amazing low price for your gastronomical sins.
In the second, you have a narrative established. Everything from the table (dressed in crystal, heavy utensils, and vivid white cloths) to the high-class music (played softly) and the lighting (also soft) makes the meal into an experience rather than a simple dinner. As for the food, there's an order there also. Appetizer, soup, salad, entree, dessert, a drink (or two, or three - no more than three in this environment) and a helpful menu and staff optimize your choices into a pleasing progression that ends with you happily forking over a ridiculous amount of money for your experience.
I read these back to back, on August 5th and August 6th, and I probably should not have - they're a little repetitive even inside themselves, and even more so when compared to each other. I know that it's the type of book where people can be presumed to read chapters at random, or to read the second book before the first, but it was a little jarring.
You are Not So Smart
David McRaney
ISBN: 9781592406593
You are Now Less Dumb
David McRaney
ISBN: 9781592408054
Both Nonfiction; behavioral science and neuro-psychology.
First off, I saw these float through the library, and was really taken by the cover, so congratulations on mastering that specific portion of influence and marketing.
Once inside, the short chapters didn't quite ever get deep enough into the crunchy bits for my taste, but I fully realize I'm an outlier who reads actual journal articles because they're interesting. (They'd be more interesting if statistics weren't as impenetrable to me as Mandarin Chinese, but one must persevere.) The topics were a bit scatter-shot, and I think this more than anything reflects the blogged origins of the book. There just wasn't much connection or build between the chapters, and that is much more reminiscent of a blog, where each post is pretty much taken on it's own unless it specifically references another. In a book, even nonfiction, the ebb and flow of an overall narrative structure (which, ironically enough, is addressed in decent length in both books) makes the journey through the pages (see, I'm even doing it here) seem more enlightening and fulfilling.
It's the difference between those amazing Japanese conveyer-belt eateries, and a good 4 star restaurant.
In the first, you get to pick and choose, and each dish is designed to stand alone. You eat too much because you want a little bit of everything (and if you're American, you waste more than you should by tasting and then not finishing when you didn't like it), you don't really have a set beginning or ending (oooh, I just sat down, but mochi is coming through right now!) and there isn't any exterior cue for you to stop eating (other than the incriminating pile of plates you accumulate) until you finally waddle your satiated way up to pay the amazing low price for your gastronomical sins.
In the second, you have a narrative established. Everything from the table (dressed in crystal, heavy utensils, and vivid white cloths) to the high-class music (played softly) and the lighting (also soft) makes the meal into an experience rather than a simple dinner. As for the food, there's an order there also. Appetizer, soup, salad, entree, dessert, a drink (or two, or three - no more than three in this environment) and a helpful menu and staff optimize your choices into a pleasing progression that ends with you happily forking over a ridiculous amount of money for your experience.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
How Toddlers Thrive, Tovah P. Klein, PhD
How Toddlers Thrive
Tovah P. Kein, PhD
ISBN: 9781476735139
Read March 6, 2014
Nonfiction: parenting, education.
Interesting focus here, approaching toddlerhood through the lens of understanding WHY toddlers are demanding contrary little beasts; what's actually going on mentally and emotionally that causes their behaviors.
Some really insightful bits, but overall the tone is a little too upbeat - having seen lots of toddlers myself, I think that it can never hurt to really emphasize that no matter how good your understanding, or how talented and in-touch your parenting, there are going to be battles of wills, there are going to be tantrums, and there are going to be moments when you (the parent) want to tear your hair out by the roots, and that this is all normal and ok. I didn't feel like the book really addressed that quite seriously enough.
That said, I did like the focus on how toddlers live in the now, that they don't have an ability to understand the day in sequence or handle transitions well, and that as a parent your job isn't to make them happy, but to help them learn to navigate their big and complex and scary emotions - especially the ones that society considers "bad" - without making the kid feel bad or shamed or unworthy or unloved. Easy peasy, right?
Finally, I was interested in the approach to sharing. She emphasized that the kid has to be both developmentally and emotionally ready to share, and that forcing the issue often backfires. In other words, young kids are working out the concepts of "me" and "mine" and they conflate the two. If you force a child to share what they still think of as part of themselves, that doesn't help them set up healthy emotional boundaries, and also causes them to feel that their identity is unrecognized or worse, unimportant. After they get the idea that they are not their things, they still emotionally need to have their own things be theirs - to have the concept that their needs are important, recognized, and met. Once they are secure in their feelings of self, and their feelings of ownership, then (at least according to the author) they should not only share, but share willingly and of their own impulse. I'm not so sure I buy that they'll miraculously jump into sharing on their own accord, but I do understand the ideas of letting them figure out themselves and their stuff before making them share (ie - give away) what is important to them, when they don't have a mental framework to understand why it is important to share (no sense of empathy yet, or theory of mind to understand that other people even have wants/needs), or even that they will get the shared item back (no developed time-sense, living in the now).
Now, on how to balance that revelation with a society that looks on sharing as the prime directive of toddlerhood and socialization? No advice for parents there, thanks so much, author lady!
Tovah P. Kein, PhD
ISBN: 9781476735139
Read March 6, 2014
Nonfiction: parenting, education.
Interesting focus here, approaching toddlerhood through the lens of understanding WHY toddlers are demanding contrary little beasts; what's actually going on mentally and emotionally that causes their behaviors.
Some really insightful bits, but overall the tone is a little too upbeat - having seen lots of toddlers myself, I think that it can never hurt to really emphasize that no matter how good your understanding, or how talented and in-touch your parenting, there are going to be battles of wills, there are going to be tantrums, and there are going to be moments when you (the parent) want to tear your hair out by the roots, and that this is all normal and ok. I didn't feel like the book really addressed that quite seriously enough.
That said, I did like the focus on how toddlers live in the now, that they don't have an ability to understand the day in sequence or handle transitions well, and that as a parent your job isn't to make them happy, but to help them learn to navigate their big and complex and scary emotions - especially the ones that society considers "bad" - without making the kid feel bad or shamed or unworthy or unloved. Easy peasy, right?
Finally, I was interested in the approach to sharing. She emphasized that the kid has to be both developmentally and emotionally ready to share, and that forcing the issue often backfires. In other words, young kids are working out the concepts of "me" and "mine" and they conflate the two. If you force a child to share what they still think of as part of themselves, that doesn't help them set up healthy emotional boundaries, and also causes them to feel that their identity is unrecognized or worse, unimportant. After they get the idea that they are not their things, they still emotionally need to have their own things be theirs - to have the concept that their needs are important, recognized, and met. Once they are secure in their feelings of self, and their feelings of ownership, then (at least according to the author) they should not only share, but share willingly and of their own impulse. I'm not so sure I buy that they'll miraculously jump into sharing on their own accord, but I do understand the ideas of letting them figure out themselves and their stuff before making them share (ie - give away) what is important to them, when they don't have a mental framework to understand why it is important to share (no sense of empathy yet, or theory of mind to understand that other people even have wants/needs), or even that they will get the shared item back (no developed time-sense, living in the now).
Now, on how to balance that revelation with a society that looks on sharing as the prime directive of toddlerhood and socialization? No advice for parents there, thanks so much, author lady!
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Parenting Without Power Struggles, Susan Stiffelman
Parenting Without Power Struggles, Susan Stiffelman (M.FT). ISBN: 9781451667660
Read August 15, 2013
Nonfiction: parenting.
This was an excellent read. Very clear, and very specific
instructions on WHAT to do (and also what not to do, although I like
that she focuses on the positive - no "don't think about pink elephants"
here, which was very nice) and WHY it is that it's good to do. She's
also amazingly clear that these interactions are challenging to do, hard
to keep up, and really difficult to get right in real life, with real
children. I admire that approach. I also like that her example texts
don't have children who magically become compliant and happy as soon as
the magic words are used, which is a fault in a lot of the parenting
technique books I've encountered.
I do have some quibbles - I could have used a lot more of the
information in Chapters 1-8 and 10, and a little less in the others.
I especially feel like she shortchanged the reader on the contents of
Chapter 10 dealing with depression and anxiety. If/when I have kids, I
know that the best way to help them is to have my own depression and
anxiety under control so I feel geninely happy around my kid. I also
know that given the way my brain works, there's no way in hell that's
actually going to happen. So a little real-life advice on how to
counteract that would have been lovely. Same with the Act 1/Act 2
advice. That was very hastily done, and not as clear as it could
perhaps have been. I'm also not as fond of mindmaps and assigning
emotions to colors and whatnot, so all of the slightly "woo" bits did
ruffle my feathers a bit, but there wasn't much of it - I'm just
super-sensitive to that sort of thing.
Overall, well-organized, well-explained, and well-done. I'm
actually going to buy a copy for myself and my husband, and I have only
done that with two other parenting/child-development books so far.
Good company! (The others are Beth Grosshan's Beyond Time Out, and Paul Tough's How Children Succeed.)
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