A few more good reads

Millie Eliza

Sorry for the long blog hiatus, but having a new baby girl has cut into my blogging time.  Here's a photo as evidence: 

In the meantime, here are links to three interesting recent articles:

• Tom Friedman's article in the New York Times, Average is Over
• Nan Keohane is the former President of Duke and Wellesley, and she makes a powerful argument for liberal arts education in her article, The Liberal Arts as Guideposts in the 21st Century
• And, over the winter holidays, David Brooks awarded his annual Sidney awards for the best magazine articles in 2011.  Here is Part I and Part II.

Now that Millie is sleeping through the night, you can expect more regular updates.

Off the bookshelf: "The Element" by Ken Robinson

Last week at the AIMS conference, I had the opportunity to hear one of the world's experts on creativity, Sir Ken Robinson.  Sir Ken is the author of the highly regarded Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, and he lectures around the world spreading the idea that creativity can be cultivated, and that the range of human ability is extraordinarily rich and diverse.

His new book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything is "a hymn to the breathtaking diversity of human talent and passion and to the extraordinary potential for growth and development."  Through dozens of vivid anecdotes, a review of the latest research on intelligence and creativity, and using his dry British wit, Robinson provides an inspiring roadmap for how individuals can cultivate and maximize their talents and passions.

The book resonated with me because it speaks to one of Gunston's core values: our desire to help each and every student discover, celebrate, and maximize their personal abilities and strengths.

Off the Bookshelf: The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is one of the most widely-reviewed and controversial books of the year, and some of its anecdotes--Chua calling her daughter "garbage", making her three-year-old stand in the cold until she agreed to practice the piano, and not allowing her daughters to attend playdates and sleepovers, or watch TV and play video games--have been widely cited in newspapers, magazines, and on talk shows.  Chua's stated aim is to explain the style of "Chinese Parenting", which she sets in contrast to "Western Parenting".  In the book, she explains the controversial nature of these terms, as well as their limitations.

With my interest piqued, I downloaded the "sample" of the book on my Kindle, and I soon found myself engrossed by an extraordinarily vivid tale of alpha parenting.  Indeed, I finished the book in just over a day, mainly because Chua's writing style is as hard-charging as her parenting style, and when I put the book down, I needed to catch my breath.  While it might be easy to dismiss Chua's parenting style as "over the top" (and yes, I think she's not just over the top, but WAY over the top), I think her book provides some extraordinary insights about parenting.  In The Atlantic Magazine, reviewer Caitlin Flanagan captures the essence of Chua's arguments and philosophy: 

Kids are inherently strong, not weak; self-esteem derives from accomplishing difficult and worthwhile pursuits; adults are better than children at judging what does and does not constitute a valuable or enriching experience; the better you get at something, the more you will enjoy doing it; and a great deal of what is on offer to American teenagers these days is not only coarsening but downright dangerous.

While I am certainly not advocating some of the extreme parenting measures employed by Chua, her book speaks to the power of high standards and the value of pursuing excellence in a worthwhile activity.  A few years ago, I did an exercise with a group of faculty members, asking them to describe the "best" teacher they ever had, and what quality it was about the teacher that made them so great.  In a room of fifteen teachers, every single person shared essentially the same response: the best teacher they ever had was the most demanding teacher they ever had; someone who pushed them beyond their own perceived limits.

The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is a deeply engaging book; it's worth reading.

Off the Bookshelf: The View from Lazy Point

The View from Lazy Point is one of the best books about nature and the environment that I have ever read.  The Barnes and Noble review captures the book well:

Beginning in his kayak in his home waters of eastern Long Island, Carl Safina's The View from Lazy Point takes us through the four seasons to the four points of the compass, from the high Arctic south to Antarctica, across the warm belly of the tropics from the Caribbean to the west Pacific, then home again. We meet Eskimos whose way of life is melting away, explore a secret global seed vault hidden above the Arctic Circle, investigate dilemmas facing foraging bears and breeding penguins, and sail to formerly devastated reefs that are resurrecting as fish graze the corals algae-free.
 
"Each time science tightens a coil in the slack of our understanding," Safina writes, "it elaborates its fundamental discovery: connection." He shows how problems of the environment drive very real matters of human justice, well-being, and our prospects for peace. In Safina's hands, nature's continuous renewal points toward our future. His lively stories grant new insights into how our world is changing, and what our response ought to be.

In addition to his brilliant ability to show the interconnectedness of humans, animals, and the environment, Safina's true gift is his ability to show how seemingly benign changes in the environment at Lazy Point (in a climate similar to the Eastern Shore) actually represents significant larger scale changes occurring on our planet today.