Raising an Optimistic Child: A Proven Plan for Depression-Proofing Young Children--For Life

Raising an Optimistic Child: A Proven Plan for Depression-Proofing Young Children--For Life Review

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A program for fostering positive relationship-building habits in children to help alleviate and even prevent childhood depression

Raising an Optimistic Child offers you tools for creating a positive, supportive family atmosphere that helps children who are already depressed and can even prevent this crippling disorder. Steps and additional techniques will help you combat your own depression, tackle parental issues, and enhance learning and coping skills. It also alerts you to circumstances that put a child at risk for depression and suggests ways to ward it off.

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What to Look for in a Classroom: And Other Essays

What to Look for in a Classroom: And Other Essays Review

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"Alfie Kohn has a knack for bursting the bubbles that surround just about every school topic imaginable, from putting kids into uniforms to make them behave better to raising kids' self-esteem by rewarding them with stickers and pizza for reading books and doing homework. This collection of previously published essays reminds us that many schools have veered off course in their day-to-day business. And it's a primer that, if taken seriously, can put schools back on the right track."

--Educational LeadershipThrough his writings and speeches, Alfie Kohn has been stirring up controversy for years, demonstrating how the conventional wisdom about education often isn't supported by the available research, and illuminating gaps between our long-term goals for students and what actually goes on in schools. Now What to Look for in a Classroom brings together his most popular articles from Educational Leadership, Phi Delta Kappan, and Education Week--and also from The Atlantic Monthly, the Boston Globe, and other publications.

From self-esteem to school uniforms, from grade inflation to character education, Kohn raises a series of provocative questions about the status quo in this collection of incisive essays. He challenges us to reconsider some of our most basic assumptions about children and education. Can good values really be instilled
in students? What, if anything, lies behind the label of attention deficit disorder? Are there solid data to support our skepticism about watching TV? Might such allegedly enlightened practices as authentic assessment,
logical consequences,
and Total Quality education
turn out to be detrimental? Whether he is explaining why cooperative learning can be so threatening or why detracking is so fiercely opposed, Kohn offers a fresh, informed, and frequently disconcerting perspective on the major issues in education.

In the And, his critical examination of current practice is complemented by a vision of what schooling ought to be. Kohn argues for giving children more opportunity to participate in their own schooling, for transforming classrooms into caring communities, and for providing the kind of education that taps and nourishes children's curiosity. Through all these essays, Kohn calls us back to our own ideals, showing us how we can be more effective at helping students to become good learners and good people.

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Learned Helplessness: A Theory for the Age of Personal Control

Learned Helplessness: A Theory for the Age of Personal Control Review

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When experience with uncontrollable events gives rise to the expectation that events in the future will also elude control, disruptions in motivation, emotion, and learning may ensue. "Learned helplessness" refers to the problems that arise in the wake of uncontrollability. First described in the 1960s among laboratory animals, learned helplessness has since been applied to a variety of human problems entailing inappropriate passivity and demoralization. While learned helplessness is best known as an explanation of depression, studies with both people and animals have mapped out the cognitive and biological aspects. The present volume, written by some of the most widely recognized leaders in the field, summarizes and integrates the theory, research, and application of learned helplessness. Each line of work is evaluated critically in terms of what is and is not known, and future directions are sketched. More generally, psychiatrists and psychologists in various specialties will be interested in the book's argument that a theory emphasizing personal control is of particular interest in the here and now, as individuality and control are such salient cultural topics.

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Are We Free? Psychology and Free Will

Are We Free? Psychology and Free Will Review

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Do people have free will, or this universal belief an illusion? If free will is more than an illusion, what kind of free will do people have? How can free will influence behavior? Can free will be studied, verified, and understood scientifically? How and why might a sense of free will have evolved? These are a few of the questions this book attempts to answer.
People generally act as though they believe in their own free will: they don't feel like automatons, and they don't treat one another as they might treat robots. While acknowledging many constraints and influences on behavior, people nonetheless act as if they (and their neighbors) are largely in control of many if not most of the decisions they make. Belief in free will also underpins the sense that people are responsible for their actions. Psychological explanations of behavior rarely mention free will as a factor, however. Can psychological science find room for free will? How do leading psychologists conceptualize free will, and what role do they believe free will plays in shaping behavior?
In recent years a number of psychologists have tried to solve one or more of the puzzles surrounding free will. This book looks both at recent experimental and theoretical work directly related to free will and at ways leading psychologists from all branches of psychology deal with the philosophical problems long associated with the question of free will, such as the relationship between determinism and free will and the importance of consciousness in free will. It also includes commentaries by leading philosophers on what psychologists can contribute to long-running philosophical struggles with this most distinctly human belief. These essays should be of interest not only to social scientists, but to intelligent and thoughtful readers everywhere.

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What's the Point of School?: Rediscovering the Heart of Education

What's the Point of School?: Rediscovering the Heart of Education Review

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Claxton reveals the key responsibility of education today: to create students who enjoy learning. With their emphasis on stressful exams and regurgitation of information, he claims that schools are currently doing more harm than good. Instead, schools must encourage students to develop their curiosity, be brave enough to ask stupid questions, and think for themselves--all without chucking out Shakespeare or the Periodic Table.

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Aim to Grow Your Brain

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Aim to Grow Your Brain
A Guide for Teachers, Parents, and Students

Do you know that student perceptions about intelligence profoundly influence school performance? When students learn, that intelligence is expandable - that the brain responds dramatically to effort, reflection, and practice - they begin to embrace new challenges, and overcome fear of failure.
The message "smart is something you get, not just something you are," is a powerful one. It offers life-changing hope for growing a better brain through personal effort.

Discover neuroscience lessons that...

Inspire students to embrace academic challenges, and believe in their potential for intellectual growth.
Motivate teachers to create an enriched, challenging academic environment, and discover its impact on learning.
Provide a message of hope: "If you embrace challenges, give your best effort, and practice - you will grow in intelligence. We all have the potential to grow a better brain".

Deliver this message of hope... and watch lives change.

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Transformative Classroom Management: Positive Strategies to Engage All Students and Promote a Psychology of Success (Jossey-Bass Teacher)

Transformative Classroom Management: Positive Strategies to Engage All Students and Promote a Psychology of Success (Jossey-Bass Teacher) Review

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The natural condition of any classroom is harmonious, satisfying, and productive, so why do so many teachers struggle with problems of apathy, hostility, anxiety, inefficiency, and resistance?

In this groundbreaking book, education expert John Shindler presents a powerful model, Transformative Classroom Management (TCM), that can be implemented by any teacher to restore the natural positive feelings in his or her classroom—the love of learning, collaboration, inspiration, and giving—and create a productive learning environment in which all students can achieve.

Unlike other classroom management systems that view problems as something to be "handled," TCM offers suggestions for creating optimal conditions for learning, performance, motivation, and growth. This practical book shows teachers how to abandon ineffective short-term gimmicks, bribes, and punishments and adopt the proven management practices and new habits of mind that will transform their classrooms.

Praise for Transformative Classroom Management

"Transformative Classroom Management is a practical resource that explains the how and why of classroom management for novice and veteran teachers. Dr. Shindler recognizes the importance of preserving the teacher's sanity while ensuring the student's development of a personal sense of responsibility and a positive self-esteem."
—Eileen Matus, principal, South Toms River Elementary School, New Jersey

"I have read many other management books by other authors, but Transformative Classroom Management has been the best so far at demystifying the invisible forces in the classroom."
—Will McElroy, 4th grade teacher, Los Angeles United School District

"This book was an invaluable tool for me during my student teaching. It served as a reference book that I found myself continually drawn to while struggling to find ways to effectively manage 29 first graders. The ideas, concepts and suggestions in the book were so innovative and helpful that even my Master Teacher found herself implementing some of the ideas! A must have for all student teachers!"
—Carol Gillon, student teacher, Seattle University

"Insightful and thoroughly researched, Transformative Classroom Management is an invaluable tool to help teachers, newbies and veterans alike, develop fully functional and engaged learning communities."
—Lisa Gamache Rodriguez, teacher, Los Angeles Unified School District

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Enthusiastic and Engaged Learners: Approaches to Learning in the Early Childhood Classroom (Early Childhood Education Series)

Enthusiastic and Engaged Learners: Approaches to Learning in the Early Childhood Classroom (Early Childhood Education Series) Review

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''Hyson has truly given early childhood educators a great gift. We will now have Enthusiastic and Engaged Learners as a framework to guide our understanding and communication about approaches to learning....Lively and enchanting vignettes of children, teachers, and classrooms abound in this book, thus bringing to life the theoretical constructs explored. In addition, the author's clear, concrete, and well-organized writing style keeps the reader enthusiastic and engaged throughout.'' --From the Foreword by Sue Bredekamp, Council for Professional Recognition

''Curiosity, persistence, and joy are key ingredients that pave the way for a lifetime of learning. Enthusiastic and Engaged Learners is a landmark book that should be read by all who journey with young children, encourage their engagement, celebrate their enthusiasm, and help them build a strong foundation for a successful education.'' --Joan Lombardi, Director, The Children's Project

''Enthusiastic and Engaged skillfully describes the conceptual framework and research base around approaches to learning while also translating the information into practical strategies that early childhood educators can use in their work with children every day.'' --Mary Louise Hemmeter, Vanderbilt University

''Enthusiastic and Engaged Learners breaks significant new ground...Best of all, the author drives the research to practice by providing essential learning tools for practitioners and families to gauge and engage young children in their approaches to learning.'' Jana Martella, Executive Director, NAECS/SDE

Of all the school readiness domains, approaches to learning is perhaps the least understood but the most important. Research shows that positive approaches to learning improve both social emotional and academic outcomes. This new resource will help early childhood professionals implement strategies to support young children's positive approaches to learning their enthusiasm (interest, joy, and motivation to learn) and their engagement (attention, persistence, flexibility, self-regulation, and other essential learning behaviors). Along with extensive research, the text includes images of practice in early education programs in culturally, economically, and linguistically diverse settings. This book will help teachers, future teachers, and other early childhood stakeholders to understand how children acquire positive approaches to learning, know what research says about why approaches to learning are so important, recognize what supports and what undermines children's enthusiasm and engagement in learning, identify and plan specific strategies for the classroom, use culturally sensitive assessments to plan interventions, select and modify curriculum and teaching practices, access resources to help every child enter school with positive approaches to learning, and influence educational policies and decision making.

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Talk About Teaching!: Leading Professional Conversations

Talk About Teaching!: Leading Professional Conversations Review

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Written by a renowned educator, this breakthrough work helps leaders understand the value of professional conversations in promoting reflection, inquiry, support, and ongoing teacher development.

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Teaching Happiness and Well-Being in Schools: Learning to ride elephants

Teaching Happiness and Well-Being in Schools: Learning to ride elephants Review

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Teaching Happiness and Well-Being in Schools: Learning to ride elephants Feature

There has recently been an explosion of interest in positive psychology and the teaching of well-being and 'happiness' in the PSHE world in schools and many teachers are looking for clear information on how to implement these potentially life-changing ideas in the classroom. This book provides an introduction to the theory of positive psychology and a practical guide on how to implement the theory in (primarily secondary) schools. The American psychologist and writer Martin Seligman, well known for his work on the idea of 'learned helplessness', has more recently been working in the field of positive psychology. He has led training in resilience in a number of UK local authorities. Wellington College, where Ian Morris is head of philosophy, religion and PSHE, is among the first UK schools to introduce a formal well-being and happiness curriculum developed by the author.

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