My Grammar and I... Or Should That Be Me?

I really enjoy writing, and because I do a lot of it, I must make sure my grammar is spot-on. Plus, poor grammar is a pet peeve of mine and no matter how many times I grind my teeth over a poorly written sentence, I can't change the way others write. It makes it even harder for some since the rules of writing tend to change a little over time. For example, when I was in high school, you always, always added a comma at the end of a string of words, right before the word "and" (known as a serial comma). But now, the last comma isn't always necessary. So, when is it necessary? My Grammar and I Or Should That Be Me?: Old School Ways to Improve Your English answers this and many more questions (including the big question posed in the title)!

For those of us addicted to proper grammar, and for those of you interested in being able to improve your writing, My Grammar and I Or Should That Be Me? provides the answers to questions you have with a relaxed and sometimes comedic approach. Even through my fogged mommy-brain, I am able to sit and read through My Grammar and I Or Should That Be Me? quite easily, which is more than I can say for some of my college level English textbooks!

Some of you may be wondering if I am one of those social networkers that reads and re-reads my Facebook status updates before I post. The answer is yes, I do. In fact, if I do see a grammatical error, I promptly delete it and start over or post again and explain my lack of accuracy by blaming it on my fogged mommy-brain! I suppose it would be a little too much for me to purchase My Grammar and I Or Should That Be Me? as secret pal gifts for those who don't worry about grammatically correct status updates, especially now after reviewing the book.

Surely, there must be many more of you out there stressing over the serial comma, and if you are, My Grammar and I Or Should That Be Me? is a helpful piece of therapy! For those of you simply pondering the proper usage of various nouns, pronouns, verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, or even the serial comma (and many more), My Grammar and I Or Should That Be Me?: Old School Ways to Improve Your English will provide you with a simple and easy to remember explanation for each question you may have.

If you like this book, you may also be interested in reading reviews on these other books:

• I Used to Know That
• i before e (except after c)

I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School

I am a stickler for fact based books. I still have all my college books for reference, and even though they are only collecting dust in the bottom of a spare closet, I've convinced myself I need to keep them. I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School, by Caroline Taggart, is the book that isn't collecting dust because it wraps so many different facts into one compact book! In fact, it as found a nice little home on my computer desk - far away from the dark depths of a closet!

Unless you are teaching a subject in school or are a super genius, there's just no way you are going to be able to remember everything you were taught. You will probably remember the difference between an adverb and an adjective, but will you remember what "diphthongs" are? In fact, I had to read that word twice because I couldn't recall anything having been called a diphthong!

I've studied a fair amount of literature and even though it was in college - my most recent studies - I still am unable to retain everything, even after writing research papers on the same topics! I just don't use the information every day and of course, much of what I had learned has disappeared from my mental database. But I sat back and flipped through the literature portion of I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School and it was amazing to see what memories were being triggered! From Shakespeare to J.R.R. Tolkien, each literary great has at least a small spotlight in I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School.

Whether you are a literary buff, a lover of science, or just interested in unlocking the memory back that's collecting a little bit of dust, I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School covers many other topics like Religion, History, Geography, Nature and more!

If you like this book, you may also be interested in reading reviews on these other books:

• My Grammar and I... Or Should That Be Me?
• i before e (except after c)

The Global Achievement Gap - Article #2

The following is an article written by Tony Wagner, author of The Global Achievement Gap. You can read my review of this book here.
Education Accountability Version 2.0: A Letter to the Next President
By Tony Wagner,
Author of The Global Achievement Gap
Dear Mr. President:
Your education platform was filled with noble generalities. I suppose you thought you couldn't get more specific because the No Child Left Behind Law is increasingly unpopular and unworkable, and there is no agreement about how to fix it. It is an issue that doesn't lend itself to sound bites. To fix NCLB, you must first understand the skills that matter most in the 21st century and the ways in which the NCLB law is actually getting in the way of more meaningful accountability. And then you must invest in accountability "version 2.0."
Problem: Too few students are graduating from high school. The ones who do lack the essential skills they need for college, careers, and citizenship.
Nearly one third of our students do not graduate from high school. This problem is not more widely known because states are not held accountable for improving their graduation rates. Additionally, states use different formulas for calculating their districts' high school graduation rates, and almost all of them significantly overstate the numbers of students who graduate. Florida, for example, claims a seventy percent graduation rate, but the reality is closer to fifty-five percent.
The majority of the students who do graduate from our nation's public high schools are unprepared for college and the workplace. In the 21st century, the skills needed for careers, college, and citizenship have converged: Critical thinking, creative problem-solving, collaboration, and effective communication have become far more important than mere memorization and factual recall. However, at the high school level, states continue to test low level content knowledge and factual recall through multiple choice tests, and a passing score in even the most "rigorous" of these tests, such as the Massachusetts MCAS test, does not mean students are career and college-ready. Forty percent of the students who pass MCAS need remediation in college. Nationally, one out of every two students who starts college never completes a degree, and the main reason for this poor completion rate is students' lack of college-level skills, not lack of subject content knowledge. Similarity, employers complain that most new employees lack proficiency in the "new basic" skills outlined above.
Solution: The Department of Education should hold schools and districts accountable for their graduation rates and assess the skills that matter most.
The Department of Education should require all school districts and states in the U.S. to report their high school graduation rates according to a common formula. To ensure that schools teach the skills that matter most, the Department of Education should "audit" school districts' performance by testing representative sample populations of students with assessments that measure the most important skills. For example, the College and Work Readiness Assessment measures high school students' analytic reasoning, critical thinking, problem-solving, and writing skills and compares them to the scores of freshmen in 250 colleges. (http://www.cae.org/). Scores from tests like these will tell us whether our country is making progress in increasing the percentages of students who leave high school "college and work ready." Scores of subgroups of students would be reported, as they are under the current law, to ensure that districts teach all students new skills.
To create greater accountability, the Department of Education should issue and widely publicize an annual "report card" for every school district in the country. This short document would simply report the percent of students who graduate and the percent who graduate college-ready by subgroup. Transparency is a far more powerful way to create greater accountability than are the largely meaningless threats in the current law. States would then have the responsibility to develop strategies for helping their under-performing districts to improve.
Problem: The accountability measurements for Adequate Yearly Progress incents states and districts to create a boring, dumbed-down, test prep curriculum, and there is no common standard for "proficient."
One major problem with the NCLB law is the unrealistic expectation that every school will improve the number of students who score "proficient" by a certain percent every year until 100 percent of the students in the nation are proficient by 2014. This expectation leads to two widespread practices: 1) Many states, like Mississippi and Wisconsin, create easy tests where the standard of "proficiency" is such a low bar that most students can pass; 2) To ensure that more students pass state tests, districts require teachers to teach the test content and give frequent practice tests, leaving no time for more interesting or enriching learning opportunities. Increasingly in this country, what gets tested is all that gets taught.
The second major problem with the law is that it allows the standard of "proficiency" to be set by each state. So there are, in fact, fifty different standards of proficiency in this country. For example, students in Mississippi, who have traditionally been among the least literate in this country, are more "proficient" in reading than students in Minnesota, according to the two states' test scores. Because the states' standards vary so widely, their test scores tell us absolutely nothing about what students really know and can do.
Solution: Create a national high school writing test, benchmark districts' and states' yearly progress to a common international standard, and make the unit of accountability the district, rather than individual students.
Lack of writing skills is the number one complaint of both employers and college teachers. However, many states are no longer testing writing because they are not required to, and writing tests are expensive and time-consuming to score. To the extent that some states, like Massachusetts, test students' writing, it is by requiring high school students merely to write a five paragraph essay. The solution is for the federal government to administer a two hour writing exam to demographic sample populations of eleventh graders in all states, as is done in many European countries. The essay question for the writing exam would be based on a major event or document in American History. For example: "Discuss the causes of the civil war and the ways in which these causes continue to influence current events in this country;" Or, "Which
of the first ten amendments (which would be reproduced on the test) do you think is most important for a strong democracy and why."
The second solution to the lack of common standards is to use the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) test results as the benchmark for progress in states' education improvement efforts. American students are significantly outperformed by students in most other industrial nations, in part because the PISA tests require very little recall of information and much more application of knowledge to new problems. These are the skills that matter most in the real world, but they are not ones our students learn in their multiple choice world. The incentive for states to improve their education outcomes is economic. States and school communities that have very low PISA scores, which would be widely publicized by the Department of Education, will not attract or keep businesses that demand all employees have 21st century skills.
Finally, in order for states to be able to afford much higher quality tests, like the CWRA and PISA, they should no longer be required to test every student every year. State and district accountability can achieved by testing sample populations of students every year -- a kind of educational audit. To do well on such tests, districts and schools would need to create local assessments for every student that were aligned with the new state and national tests. Each
teacher would be regularly assessing all of his or her students to ensure that students who might be among those randomly chosen for the state and national tests would be well-prepared.
Accountability 2.0 would focus schools and districts on preparing students for meaningful assessments which measure the skills that matter most in the 21st century. To prepare for these new tests, all students would be taught how to write, reason, analyze, pose thoughtful questions and solve problems. In short, they would learn the skills they need for college, careers, and citizenship, and they would be engaged in challenging and interesting work in their classes. Doing anything less that a version 2.0 of our accountability system puts our students' and our country's future at stake.
©2008 Tony Wagner
Author BioTony Wagner is the co director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His most recent book, The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach The New Survival Skills Our Kids Need -- And What We Can Do About It, has just been published by Basic Books. Tony can be reached through his website: www.schoolchange.org

The Global Achievement Gap - Article

The following is an article written by Tony Wagner, author of The Global Achievement Gap. You can read my review of this book here.
What Do Your Children Need to Know to Succeed in Today’s World?
And What Can You Do to Help Them At School and At Home?By Tony Wagner,
Author of The Global Achievement Gap
The world is changing at an extraordinary pace. Twenty-five years ago, most young people who mastered the "3 r's" of reading, writing, and arithmetic and had a high school diploma were likely to be able to get and keep a decent job. Not so today. In research for my new book, I've come to understand that there are seven "survival skills" all young people need to master for success in today's world. The skills needed for careers, college, and citizenship have converged. Students who leave high school without them are far less likely to get a good job, succeed in college, or be an active and informed in our democratic society.
All Kids, New Skills
Here are the Seven Survival Skills, as described by some of the people whom I interviewed:
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
"The idea that a company's senior leaders have all the answers and can solve problems by themselves has gone completely by the wayside . . . The person who's close to the work has to have strong analytic skills. You have to be rigorous: test your assumptions, don't take things at face value, don't go in with preconceived ideas that you're trying to prove." -- Ellen Kumata, consultant to Fortune 200 companies
Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence
"The biggest problem we have in the company as a whole is finding people capable of exerting leadership across the board . . . Our mantra is that you lead by influence, rather than authority." -- Mark Chandler, Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Cisco
Agility and Adaptability
"I've been here four years, and we've done fundamental reorganization every year because of changes in the business . . . I can guarantee the job I hire someone to do will change or may not exist in the future, so this is why adaptability and learning skills are more important than technical skills." -- Clay Parker, President of Chemical Management Division of BOC Edwards
Initiative and Entrepreneurship
"For our production and crafts staff, the hourly workers, we need self-directed people . . . who can find creative solutions to some very tough, challenging problems." -- Mark Maddox, Human Resources Manager at Unilever Foods North America
Effective Oral and Written Communication
"The biggest skill people are missing is the ability to communicate: both written and oral presentations. It's a huge problem for us." -- Annmarie Neal, Vice President for Talent Management at Cisco Systems
Accessing and Analyzing Information
"There is so much information available that it is almost too much, and if people aren't prepared to process the information effectively, it almost freezes them in their steps." -- Mike Summers, Vice President for Global Talent Management at Dell
Curiosity and Imagination
"Our old idea is that work is defined by employers and that employees have to do whatever the employer wants . . . but actually, you would like him to come up with an interpretation that you like -- he's adding something personal -- a creative element." -- Michael Jung, Senior Consultant at McKinsey and Company
New Learning and Roles for Parents in the Community
The problem we face as parents is that these are not the skills currently being taught and tested -- even in our "good" suburban schools. In America today, I've discovered that there is only one curriculum in most of our schools: "test prep." What gets taught is only what gets tested. And because almost all of the tests students take -- from state tests for No Child Left Behind to Advanced Placement exams -- require a great deal of memorization and factual recall, these are the only skills being taught in most classrooms. As a consequence, one out of every two students who start college never completes a degree, and employers report that young people today are ill-prepared for the 21st century workplace.
The impact you can have on teacher or school or district may be limited as one individual. I believe parents and concerned community members must work together to become effective advocates for teaching and testing the skills that matter most.
In the last chapter of my book, The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach The New Survival Skills Our Children Need -- And What We Can Do About It, I suggest that parents and community members must first understand some of the ways the world has changed and how schools need to differently prepare our students for success. Book groups, PTA meetings, and discussions in our churches and synagogues all provide opportunities for the kind of adult learning we need in order to be prepared to ask school board members, educators, and policy makers some important questions like:
• What do you think are the most important skills our high school graduates need today to succeed?
• How are you teaching and assessing these skills?
• How are you gauging the success of our schools -- by test scores or by the numbers of students who go to college and succeed there, as well as by how well prepared students are for work? Have you talked to employers and recent graduates of our schools to see if our students graduate with the skills they need?
New Ways to Support Our Children At Home
Many business leaders and educators alike worry about this generation's "lack of work ethic." However, I've come to understand that the "net generation" is not unmotivated, but rather very differently motivated. Growing up tethered to the internet as most are, today's teens crave connection with others and learning through discovery. They are accustomed to multitasking in a multimedia world and so find most work in schools to be pointless and boring. But, as parents, we worry about our children's futures and so push them to succeed in school. We look at their grades and fret about whether they will get into a "good" college. We push them to do more of the "right" things for their college application, and we hope that they will have a lucrative career some day.
All of these concerns are understandable, but the young adults whom I interviewed -- when I asked what advice they'd give parents -- told me that much of this parental worrying and pressure is actually counterproductive.
Andrew Bruck, a Princeton graduate and currently enrolled at Stanford Law School told me that "parents need to respect the extraordinary capacity of students. Our generation wants to do things. It's important to nurture children's creativity. There's so much pressure to succeed and to go to a brand-name school. There's no need for parents to pile on the stress."
A young woman in a focus group I conducted at a New England college agreed, saying "Parents need to support children in their dreams -- even if it's wanting to be an artist." Another in the group chimed in: "Parents shouldn't worry so much about how their children are doing in school. They should find out more about what their extracurricular interests are." Bruck's high school experience certainly confirmed the importance of extracurricular activities in students' lives. He told me that he learned more about writing and managing deadlines and leadership from his experience as editor of his high school's newspaper than he did from any of his classes.
Matt Kulick, a Cornell grad who now works a Google, had perhaps the best advice for parents when he said "A lot of my friends never had a good idea of what they liked or wanted to do because their parents said 'you're going to be a doctor' or . . . And it doesn't help to tell your kids to do more homework or to always ask them what grade they got. Parents need to find out what their kids like . . . My parents motivated me to do well -- not to get A's but to give my best effort. They trusted me."
Being an advocate in your community for 21st century teaching and learning, and trusting your children as they explore their interests. Easy to say, but hard to do. As parents we, too, need to continue to develop our mastery of the Seven Survival Skills -- and to be models for our children -- as we grow and learn together.

©2008 Tony Wagner
Author Bio
Tony Wagner is the co director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His most recent book, The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach The New Survival Skills Our Kids Need -- And What We Can Do About It, has just been published by Basic Books. Tony can be reached through his website: www.schoolchange.org

i before e (except after c)

While in high school and college, I found some very ingenious ways to memorize those desperately needed tidbits of information for tests and reoccurring topics. Those mnemonic strategies are still with me today. In Judy Parkinson’s book i before e (except after c), countless mnemonic strategies are presented in ways the young and old can appreciate.

Parkinson starts with the first trick of memorization we learn in life, our ABCs. She actually provides a little history with this mnemonic learning tool, along with many others in i before e (except after c). Who knew there were so many different ways to memorize topics of the English Language?

Not only are English Language mnemonics used, but there are examples for memorizing a myriad of facts. One in particular I wish I had known in my science classes was for converting Celsius to Fahrenheit and vice versa. But it is coming in handy now that I have Canadian friends that refer to degrees Celsius when talking about the weather! I just remember:

Celsius to Fahrenheit:
Multiple C by 9
Divide the answer then by 5
Next, all you need to do, is to add 32.

We’ve all used mnemonics whether we realize it or not. Or perhaps you didn’t realize that old saying “Righty-tighty, Lefty-loosey” is an example of mnemonics. Either way, we all benefit from these simple and fun ways of memorizing rules, proverbs, facts, people, places and things! Judy Parkinson makes mnemonics fun for everyone of every age in i before e (except after c), which by the way, is something I say to myself each and every time I have to spell the word “receipt!”

More Book Information:

I Before E (Except After C)
Old-School Ways to Remember Stuff
By Judy Parkinson
Published by Reader's Digest
April 2008;$14.95US; 978-0-7621-0917-3

Description

Hundreds of Memory Tricks You Learned in the Classroom

"Thirty days hath September..." How many times have your relied on that old maxim to figure out a calendar?

Or how about "Every Good Boy Does Fine" to remember the notes on the treble clef?

These ingenious, practical memory techniques abound in I BEFORE E (EXCEPT AFTER C) with its hundreds of curious sayings. In this clever -- and often hilarious -- collection, you'll find engaging mnemonics, arranged in easy-to-find categories that include:

• Geographically Speaking
• Time and the Calendar
• Think of a Number
• The Sky at Night and by Day
• Guarenteed to amuse and inform, this little book is a perfect gift for students of all ages.

Author Bio
Judy Parkinson is a graduate of Bristol University. She is a producer of documentaries, music videos, and commercials, and won a Clio award for a Greenpeace ad. Parkinson has published four books and has contributed to a show of life drawings at the Salon des Arts, Kensington.

Reviews
“Parkinson’s book is a welcome throwback, an indispensible guide that can be used for general knowledge revision, or whenever that simple nugget of information proves elusive.”
-The Good Book Guide

“Remember all those awesome acronyms and nifty mnemonics you learned in school, to stop stuff going in one ear and out the other? No? Well, never mind—a new book called i before e (except after c) is here to re-educate the educated.”
-The Sun
If you like this book, you may also be interested in reading reviews on these other books:

• My Grammar and I... Or Should That Be Me?
• I Used to Know That

Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire

The following is an excerpt from Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire
by Rafe Esquith
Published by Penguin Books; January 2008;$14.00US/$16.50CAN; 978-0-14-311286-0
Reprinted by arrangement with Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire Copyright © Rafe Esquith, 2007

Replace Fear with Trust

On the first day of school, within the first two minutes, I discuss this issue with the children. While most classrooms are based on fear, our classroom is based on trust. The children hear the words and like them, but they are only words. It is deeds that will help the children see that I not only talk the talk but walk the walk.

I use the following example with the students on their first day. Most of us have participated in the trust exercise in which one person falls back and is caught by a peer. Even if the catch is made a hundred times in a row, the trust is broken forever if the friend lets you fall the next time as a joke. Even if he swears he is sorry and will never let you fall again, you can never fall
back without a seed of doubt. My students learn the first day that a broken trust is irreparable. Everything else can be fixed. Miss your homework assignment? Just tell me, accept the fact that you messed up, and we move on. Did you break something? It happens; we can take care of it. But break my trust and the rules change. Our relationship will be okay, but it will never, ever be what it once was. Of course kids do break trust, and they should be given an opportunity to earn it back. But it takes a long time. The kids are proud of the trust I give them, and they do not want to lose it. They rarely do, and I make sure on a daily basis that I deserve the trust I ask of them.

I answer all questions. It does not matter if I have been asked them before. It does not matter if I am tired. The kids must see that I passionately want them to understand, and it never bothers me when they don’t. During an interview, a student named Alan once told a reporter, “Last year, I tried to ask my teacher a question. She became angry and said, ‘We’ve been over this. You weren’t listening!’ But I was listening! I just didn’t get it! Rafe will go over something five hundred times until I understand.”

We parents and teachers get mad at our kids all the time, and often for good reason. Yet we should never become frustrated when a student doesn’t understand something. Our positive and patient response to questions builds an immediate and lasting trust that transcends fear.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rafe Esquith has been a classroom teacher for over twenty-five years with the majority of that time spent at Hobart Elementary in Los Angeles. He is the only teacher to be awarded the president’s National Medal of the Arts. His many other honors include the American Teacher Award, Parents magazine’s As You Grow Award, Oprah Winfrey’s Use Your Life Award TM, being made a Member of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth, and the Compassion in Action Award from the Dalai Lama. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Barbara.

Fore more information, please visit www.hobartshakespeareans.org.

An Intimate Understanding of America's Teenagers: Shaking Hands with Aliens

As a thirty-something mom to a kindergartener and twin infants, I face daily challenges that test not only my parenting skills, but my negotiation skills, time-management skills, communication skills and a laundry list full of other skills needed to make my family and home a happy and safe place to be. As a step-mother to a sixteen year old, I have to work from a completely different playbook. Although I feel like it wasn't that long ago I was actually a teenager myself, I am reminded of just how far removed I am from those teenage years. It is almost as if I am an outsider looking at something completely foreign to me… something so different from what I remember my teenage years as being… something completely alien.

Bruce J. Gevirtzman has appointed himself as the expert on teenagers, and rightly so. He's spent more than 30 years teaching teens, being active in their lives in many different ways, and his hands-on experience has given him the ability to bridge the gap of understanding between teens and their parents. An Intimate Understanding of America's Teenagers: Shaking Hands with Aliens is the ultimate guide for understanding and communicating with teens. Not only is it appropriate for parents to read, but Gevirtzman speaks directly to teachers and teens in the book as well. If teens came with a user's manual, this would be it!

Although my husband's daughter doesn't live with us and I don't have a lot of contact with her, Gevirtzman's book and the topics discussed have shed a much needed light upon some of the concerns I've had in understand where she is coming from. I've also gotten a glimpse into the future of what I will be facing, because as Gevirtzman points out quite clearly, although times have changed and some issues are more serious with teens than they were when we were that age, teens are facing the same issues as before and they always will.

An Intimate Understanding of America's Teenagers is broken down into chapters that revolve around one specific topic each, beginning with communication and the unique language of each generation of teens, to the topics of self image, athletics and other extra curricular activities, sex, controlling parents, and a large array of other topics that make up the life of America's teens. In many of the chapters, Gevirtzman presents different answers to straight-shooting questions that teens themselves have provided. Answers to questions like what they see when they look into a mirror, why they participate in sports, would they tell a friend's parents if they knew their friend was doing drugs or other illegal activities, and even why males pierce their ears. It isn't necessarily the questions that will shock parents. Actually, it is quite the opposite. The questions are the same questions we as parents should pose to our teens at some point. The truthful answers are in part quite shocking when we realize that finally, teens are being honest and open (mostly), as this peek into their reality is very telling to their situations. All of this is provided in a way that only Gevirtzman could supply. His intimate knowledge of teens, from public faces they put on for the world to see, to private challenges they face every day, these teens share with him a slice of their lives that many parents and teachers never see or are just to pre-occupied to notice.

As Gevirtzman points out, being a teen is such a small snippet in time compared to the long life many of us have. However, the drama and effects of those few short years can not only last a lifetime, but it can also help (and often does) shape who we are for the rest of our lives. One off-the-wall incident in our teen years could change our very core and affect how we respond to things decades down the road. So why aren't we spending more time with teens, understanding them, so we can help make this time better for them? An Intimate Understanding of America's Teenagers does exactly that. It truly is a handbook for the ins and outs of the American Teenager.

Gevirtzman's shares countless stories of tragedy and triumph from the lives of the teens he's known over his three-plus decades of experience. An Intimate Understanding of America's Teenagers is also as funny as it is endearing and educational. Gevirtzman's experience as a playwright creates a page-turning book with the comic relief needed to make the seriousness of
the topics easier to swallow.

So whether you've got a teen, pre-teen, a tween or even a toddler, An Intimate Understanding of America's Teenagers has the information you need to make it through those few tough years that challenge even the most solid and stable families. Be sure to either read it with your teen if you have one, or ask them to take the time to read it too. It will benefit you both in ways that will not only makes those tough years a little easier to manage, but as Gevirtzman points out, the information he provides will help open those much-needed lines of communication that are key to having a good and loving relationship with the person most important in your teen's life… you.

More on An Intimate Understanding of America's Teenagers...

An Intimate Understanding of America's Teenagers: Shaking Hands with Aliens
By Bruce Gevirtzman

Gevirtzman takes us inside the minds of today's youths and contrasts them with teens of decades past. Including interviews with fellow teachers, Gevirtzman's book is threaded with one recurring truth: "Sadly, instead of parents and teachers and lawmakers and the public looking out for our kids, today's kids are largely left to fend for themselves," he concludes.

The Global Achievement Gap (Review)

Although I’ve been a mother for less than a decade, I’ve come to see just how much the schools have failed to change with our changing world. When President Bush passed the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, I though it would be a legacy for his presidency – a change our schools deserved. However, as pointed out by Tony Wagner, author of The Global Achievement Gap, not only has NCLB failed to improve our school, they are further behind now, more than ever when paralleled with our social advances. In actuality, NCLB is yet another failed attempt to produce change for the better in our American schools.

Tony Wagner, a scholar of the school system, has spent a good part of his life in examination of the building blocks and the makings of the American school system. His book, The Global Achievement Gap is a call to action, bringing attention to our schools, who are producing test takers and not the critical thinkers we need our children to grow to be. Wagner produces a laundry list of pathways and solutions for real change in our schools. He presents new learning styles, real alternatives to current curriculums, ways to motivate our educators to teach in new ways and motivation for their students to want more out of their own education.

This call to action is a call to everyone with their hand in the school system. From teachers, professors and students to lawmakers and other government officials, everyone must open this book and open the conversation for the need to improve the quality of education and the type of students we are producing in America.

Now the hurdle to be jumped is getting this information out to those who need it, especially to those who don’t realize just how badly they need it. If you’ve ever wondered if your high school student is college ready, and if not, why not – or if you’ve seen children moved through the school system even when they aren’t producing passing grades – or you’ve experienced that feeling of wanting more for students – read The Global Achievement Gap. Then, find someone else in the school system and share the information with them and encourage them to do the same. This is the motivation we need to make our schools better, and Tony Wagner is the lead to follow in this greatly needed revolution.

More on The Global Achievement Gap:

Despite the best efforts of educators, our nation’s schools are dangerously obsolete. Instead of teaching students to be critical thinkers and problem-solvers, we are asking them to memorize facts for multiple choice tests. This problem isn’t limited to low-income school districts: even our top schools aren’t teaching or testing the skills that matter most in the global knowledge economy. Our teens leave school equipped to work only in the kinds of jobs that are fast disappearing from the American economy. Meanwhile, young adults in India and China are competing with our students for the most sought-after careers around the world.

Education expert Tony Wagner has conducted scores of interviews with business leaders and observed hundreds of classes in some of the nation’s most highly regarded public schools. He discovered a profound disconnect between what potential employers are looking for in young people today (critical thinking skills, creativity, and effective communication) and what our schools are providing (passive learning environments and uninspired lesson plans that focus on test preparation and reward memorization).

He explains how every American can work to overhaul our education system, and he shows us examples of dramatically different schools that teach all students new skills. In addition, through interviews with college graduates and people who work with them, Wagner discovers how teachers, parents, and employers can motivate the “net” generation to excellence.

An education manifesto for the twenty-first century, The Global Achievement Gap is provocative and inspiring. It is essential reading for parents, educators, business leaders, policy-makers, and anyone interested in seeing our young people succeed as employees and citizens.

About the Author:

Tony Wagner is Co-Director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He consults widely to schools, districts, and foundations and was Senior Advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. A former high school teacher and principal, he is the author of several books, including Change Leadership, Making the Grade, and How Schools Change. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Find him on the web at http://www.www.schoolchange.org/, and you can purchase the book at Amazon.com

Reviews

“The Global Achievement Gap is a must read for all policymakers as the Congress continues its debate on how best to reform the No Child Left Behind law…It’s time to stop harping on what’s wrong with our schools, and instead provide them with the tools that they need to produce competitive, connective, technologically proficient, hopeful young men and women ready to take on the challenges of a global economy and succeed.”—U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye

“Tony Wagner takes us deep inside the black box of school curriculum in a way few authors have done. What do we mean by rigor? By 21st century skills? Wagner shows us concretely what thinking skills really are, how current approaches to ‘raising standards’ cannot get us there, and what will. Everyone concerned with American education should read this book.”—Linda
Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education, Stanford University

“Tony Wagner has managed to penetrate the jargon and over-simplified responses to the pervasive underachievement that exists among our students. He has charted an important new direction and given us a way to get there. This book deserves to be powerfully influential.”—Mel Levine

“Tony Wagner argues persuasively that old ways of teaching are completely unsuited to new ways of working. The Global Achievement Gap should be grabbed by business leaders to guide a much-needed conversation with educators.”—Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School Professor and author of America the Principled and Confidence

“In The Global Achievement Gap, Tony Wagner offers a thoughtful analysis of where we are in American public education (behind the times), and what we need to do to adapt to the future that is upon us. Drawing upon years of accumulated wisdom as a teacher, principal, trainer, and well-traveled observer of schools, Wagner builds a persuasive case for change in the way we approach schooling, grounded in the question, what does it mean to be an educated person in the 21st century?”—Dr. Richard C. Atkinson, President Emeritus, University of California

“The Global Achievement Gap is thoughtful and inspirational. It describes how, in these changing times, schools too must change if the US is to remain a strong economic and intellectual leader in the world, and it offers creative solutions and examples of success. This book will capture your head, your heart and, I hope, your future actions. This is a VERY important book for anyone who cares about preparing young people for success in a rapidly changing global society. Every school board member, administrator, teacher and parent in the nation should read this book.”—Anne L. Bryant, Executive Director, National School Boards Association

“Tony Wagner is not just talking about our schools here—he is talking about the future our nation. The Global Achievement Gap cuts through the complexity and partisan posing so often associated with this genre. It is a powerful call to action, and a roadmap of how to fundamentally rethink the education of our children. If we ignore it, we do so at great peril.”—Keith R. McFarland, author of #1 Wall Street Journal and New York TimesBestseller, The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers

“Kudos to Tony Wagner….Many people have been cursing the darkness of our education system, but by breaking down the many dilemmas that students, teachers and parents face as well as examining different approaches that have been successful, Wagner lights a candle for those who want to help, but don't know where to start. Whether we can transition through these exciting and perilous times will depend upon the culture we leave our young people. Tony Wagner has provided a map.”—John Abele, Founding Chairman, Boston Scientific, Board Chair, FIRST

“This important book is a wake-up call for America. For over fifty years, our schools have stayed the same, while the world has changed dramatically. Students memorize academic content, and study for standardized tests, but they never learn how to think, solve problems, or be creative. Wagner’s stories about the few remarkable schools that are transforming classroom instruction and pointing the way to the future are compelling. Every parent, teacher, politician, and executive should read this book.”—Keith Sawyer, author of Group Genius

“In this persuasive book, Tony Wagner delineates what skills are needed in a globalized era, why most American schools can’t nurture them, and how today’s schools could be transformed to cultivate tomorrow’s skills.”—Howard Gardner, author of Five Minds for the Future