Books and Me

By Jonathan A. Levi (2019) One minor quibble I have about "The Only Skill That Matters" is that the title only accurately describes the contents if you take it as meaning, "How to Learn Efficiently", even though this overarching skill is subsequently broken down into quite a few distinct sub-skills that need to be acquired in different ways.   Having said that, all of what the author says makes a huge amount of sense, even if you will have seen most of it somewhere else already.  He rehashes the inspirational work of Harry Lorayne  on how to use visual mnemonics, discusses the various applications of the Pareto Principle, (that 80% of the benefits accrue for 20% of the input), about how to manage motivation, speed reading, pre-reading, the inter-related nature of knowledge, aka cross-pollination, the benefits of the brute force approach, self-quizzing and teaching, all of which we have come across before elsewhere but it is all condensed very neatly and a...

by Katie Hurley (2019) With news that 9/10 teens are worried about their mental health, and that a third state that they feel helpless, sad and or fearful frequently and this problem far outstripping any help that is offered by others, these sorts of work books would seem to have a big and important function. This one does the job efficiently enough. There isn't anything you won't already have read before in other places, but it puts all the strategies in one neat place succinctly and clearly, and even if you don't have any mood disorder, often seems to offer very sensible strategies for life. Whether a teen would actually engage with it in the first place, let alone actually benefit from it, is another matter altogether. Rating 6/10

by Chip and Dan Heath (2011) You have to love this  simply because it proffers such a plethora of sensible sounding solutions to the problem of how to implement change and it does this with so many vivid examples, and within such well organised framework that you really won't forget the broad outline of the ideas, from which is it possible to recall the finer details and therefore will be able to actually use what you've read.  It is, as with the "Asshole Survival Guide", a must read in that it would make the world a better place. OK, at some points, you may begin to wonder if some of the research might not have survived the replication crisis .  Carol Dweck is quoted with reverence and questions were hanging over her "Growth Mindset" argument, but I see that as of August 2019, a large study has confirmed that it does work, and even if the effects were small, were still significant.  Research aside (!), intuitively, every change-facilitating method i...

by Robert I. Sutton (2017) This i s, just as Daniel Pink says on the cover, a contemporary classic. If everyone were to read it, take it to heart and act on it, our planet would be an infinitely better place.  Sutton explains not only how to identify an "asshole", (sorry, there is no other satisfactory word -believe me, I've dug around in thesauri and the darkest reaches of the minds of friends and relatives, and have not yet come up with a satisfactory replacement), he also provides numerous ideas about how to deal with them, some of which strike me as inspired, (the Benjamin Franklin effect being one of these), but for the icing on the cake, he also requires that the reader look in the mirror in order to make sure they are not the asshole in the room! So it works for everyone, the asshole as well as the victim.  And of course, most of us have our moments.  It takes a masterful saint not to lapse at some point, though we might as well aim high, I guess. A must rea...

by Brene Brown (2018) This  book is both a quickish reiteration of themes from Brown's previous books and an extension into the application of those themes to leadership.  Perhaps because it was my first Brene Brown book, I couldn't read it in the flight time that Brene prescribed.  I had to linger over the ideas primarily because it could be quite dense but also because of some key parts of the language which somehow remained obscure to me.   For example,  I finished the book still not being entirely sure I that I know what a "rumble" is. The meaning seemed to mutate a bit depending on context, so I sketched it in as I went along.  These a quibbles though.  The main message of the importance of being aware of one's vulnerability, facing it honestly and dealing with the resulting shame in a way that avoids the noxious pitfalls shame generates is utterly obvious, helpful and healing. You also end up feeling that the world badly needs a ...

by Heather T. Forbes (2010)  Phew, therapy that makes sense!  It sees the problems for what it really are and offers utterly wonderful, compassionate solutions.  It's a peculiar experience - when you finish this book, it all seems so obvious but that's probably because the explanations of the underlying causes of trauma-related behaviour are so right and real that it gives you the impression that it must have been staring you in the face all along. However, clearly this has been a difficult nut to crack and a good chunk of this book describes other nominally therapeutic strategies that are actually no help at all and indeed are often sources of even more trauma for the family. If your young person has been traumatised by something, including past therapy, read this utterly sensible, kind book. Rating: 9/10

by Chad W. Hall (2015) Short and sweet, this book lays out eight simple principles for helping other people. These principles chime almost completely with other well argued learning theories, such as unschooling doctrine  and indeed the strategies here could well prove a useful adjunct to unschooling practice. The brevity is actually hugely useful: the author doesn't stint on explanations, but instead cuts to the chase and the book therefore works well as an aide memoire, particularly when one is in the  potentially stressful improv that is a coaching scenario. Pleasantly surprised! 8/10

by Michael K. Simpson (2014) Probably for very poor reasons - such as a potentially irrational aversion to words such as "coaching" and "transformation", I had low expectations of this book, but it turned out these were unfounded. The ethos described in the book frequently chimes pretty closely with ideas I have espoused for almost two decades now, albeit enacted in a slightly different context and described in completely different language. Simpson's coaching is mentoring for the 21st century.  It involves building a trusting relationship, offering a space for building clarity and constructive action plans without resorting to punitive measures or micromanagement.  All of this of makes great good sense to unschoolers and autonomous home educators and indeed, it may prove useful addition to unschooling theory. Rating: 7/10