Archive for the ‘Education Books’ Category
Thursday, July 1st, 2021
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant offers advice about rethinking that all of us can use at work and beyond. The key is to think like a scientist. This means you have to actively try to disprove your own ideas as a way of testing their quality. This would make a great text for any leadership course and an outstanding read for anyone seeking self-improvement. Make sure that there is a copy in your professional development library.
Prologue
- This book is about the value of rethinking your assumptions, instincts, and habits while keeping an open mind. It starts with a story about wildfire fighters who when trapped neglected at first to drop their heavy gear as it was part of their identity and dropping it would signal failure. One man started a fire that in effect burned a hole through the fire and saved his life. This required rapid rethinking as this technique wasn’t taught in fire school. Due to the pandemic, we have also seen many leaders being slow to rethink their assumptions. This book is an invitation to let go of knowledge and opinions that are no longer serving you well. A hallmark of wisdom is knowing when to abandon some of your most treasured tools as you seek new solutions to old problems.
Part I. Individual Rethinking – Updating Our Own Views
1. A Preacher, a Prosecutor, a Politician, and a Scientist Walk into Your Mind
- The big idea here is to think like a scientist rather than a preacher, a prosecutor, or a politician. This requires that you revisit your beliefs to see if new evidence has made them obsolete. The worst bias is thinking that you aren’t biased. Be careful to avoid confirmation bias where you only look for facts that support your beliefs and desirability bias where you see what you want to see. Scientists are actively open-minded searching for reasons why they might be wrong. Your IQ may work against you as smart people recognize patterns faster, which can lead to seeing more stereotypes. If you are trying to promote a change, reinforce the things that will stay the same.
2. The Armchair Quarterback and the Imposter: Finding the Sweet Spot of Confidence
- Here we meet two opposing syndromes. The Armchair Quarterback Syndrome happens when confidence is greater than competence. The Imposter Syndrome happens when competence is greater than confidence. Arrogance is ignorance plus conviction. Humility allows you to absorb life’s experiences and convert them into knowledge and wisdom. A mix of confidence and humility gives us enough doubt to reexamine our old knowledge and confidence to pursue new insights. Most effective leaders score high in both confidence and humility.
- Adam believes that there are benefits associated with the Imposter Syndrome. It can motivate you to work harder. It can allow you to work smarter as you question old assumptions. Finally, it can make you a better learner as you realize that you might have something you need to learn. You are more likely to seek other opinions. It can keep you on your toes as you never think you know it all. You maintain doubts as you know you are partially blind and committed to improving your sight. Each answer raises new questions and your quest for knowledge is never finished. Arrogance, however, leaves you blind to your weaknesses.
3. The Joy of Being Wrong: THe Thrill of Not Believing Everything You Think
- Most of us are wrong more often than we like to admit. Rather than being upset when you find that you are wrong about something, it’s better to tell yourself that it means you are now less wrong than before. You can even be joyful if you realize that it means you have learned something. Adam recommends that you allow learning from being wrong to let you detach from your past and to also live so that your opinions are detached from your identity. This will make it easier when a core belief is challenged.
- A study of professional forecasters showed that the most important driver of success was how often they updated their beliefs. The best went through more rethinking cycles. They have the confident humility to doubt their judgment and the curiosity to discover new information and rethink their predictions. You should view your opinions as hunches and know that something isn’t true just because you believe it. Emotions can also get in the way. When you feel strongly about something you are less likely to change your mind when new facts present themselves. This is why so many respected predictors failed to predict Trump’s victory in 2016.
4. The Good Fight Club: The Psychology of Constructive Conflict
- There are two kinds of conflicts. There are relationship conflicts where people essentially don’t like each other, and there are task conflicts where people disagree about how to do something. The former get in the way of success, while the latter usually helps people to work together successfully. Task conflict brings out the diversity of thought. It can help us stay humble, surface doubts, and make us curious about what we might be missing. It can lead us to think again moving us closer to the truth without damaging our relationships. What matters to children is not how little their parents argue, but how respectfully they argue.
- It’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable. Disagreement is key when it comes to task conflict. The trick is not let task conflict turn into relationship conflict. As a leader, you want to promote the idea that disagreement is necessary for growth and success. It’s also key that leaders show they believe and care about the people with who they disagree. This can make disagreement seem like a sign of respect. Try to frame disputes as debates. This signals that you are receptive to considering dissenting opinions and changing your mind. Don’t fall into the trap that some leaders fall into by surrounding yourself with agreeable people. They shield themselves from task conflict by eliminating boat-rockers and listening to boot-lickers.
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Monday, June 2nd, 2014
Think Like a Freak by Steven D Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner (©2014, Harpur Collins: New York, NY) offers to retrain your brain. This book follows Freakonomics and Super Reakonomics that were both best sellers. This claims to be the most revolutionary book yet. It features captivating stories and unconventional analysis that should help you think more productively, creatively, and rationally. Click at the bottom of any page to purchase this very cool book.
Levitt and Dubner
- Steven D. Levitt is the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he directs the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory. He is the 2003 John Bates Clark Medal winner, an award that recognizes the most outstanding economist in America under the age of 40. In 2006, he was named one of Time magazine’s 100 People Who Shape Our World. Levitt received his B.A. from Harvard University in 1989, his Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1994, and has taught at the University of Chicago since 1997.
- Stephen J. Dubner is an award-winning author, journalist, and TV and radio personality. His solo books include Turbulent Souls and The Boy With Two Belly Buttons. His journalism has been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Time./li>
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Friday, December 2nd, 2011
Thinking Fast and Slow: How the Brain Works by Noble Prize winner Daniel Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. The fast system is intuitive and emotional, The slow system is more deliberative and more logical. This highly anticipated book can help you better understand your own thinking and make better decisions.
Daniel Kahneman
- Daniel is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton University and Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs Emeritus at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002 for his pioneering work with Amos Tversky (1937-1996) on decision making. The prize was awarded for his seminal work in psychology that challenged the rational model of judgment and decision-making. His ideas have had a profound impact on the fields of economics, medicine. and politics. He remains the only non-economist to win the Nobel in economics.
Introduction
- Daniel’s aim is to improve our ability to identify and understand errors of judgment and choice in others, and eventually ourselves. To do so he provides a richer and more precise language to discuss them. He uses the term System 1 to refer to fast thinking. This includes both variants of intuitive thought, the expert and the heuristic or rule of thumb system nonexperts use. It also includes the entirely automatic mental activities of perception and memory. System 1 turns out to be more influential than one’s experience suggests and is the secret author of many of the choices and judgments we make. System 2 is the slow, more deliberate, and more effortful system. It involves the choice to use it and concentration. System 2 is in charge of self-control. Together the form two characters that inhabit your mind.
Relationship between 1 and 2
- Daniel sites the Invisible Gorilla experiment (Check Dr. Doug’s Book Summaries for a summary of the book by Chabris and Simmons http://bit.ly/supqh7) as an example of how we can be blind to the obvious and blind to our blindness when we miss obvious things while engaged in deep System 2 thinking. System 2 is too slow and inefficient to substitute for System 1. This makes it hard to avoid mistakes but easier to stop the mistakes of others. Errors of intuitive thought are often difficult to prevent and biases are difficult to avoid.
- Both systems are active whenever we are awake. System 1 runs automatically, which means we can’t turn it off, while System 2 is normally in a comfortable low-effort mode. When System 1 runs into difficulty, it calls on System 2. System 2 is also activated when events violate the model of the world System 1 maintains.
When System 1 Has the Upper Hand
- Chapter 2 describes an experiment you can do that shows how your pupils dilate as you engage in demanding System 2 activity.
- In chapter 3 we find that System 1 is more influential on behavior when System 2 is busy. You are more likely to give in to temptation. A few drinks or a sleepless night will also impact self-control. Physical and emotional effort also tilt the control towards System 1. Fatigue and hunger cut into System 2’s effectiveness. (Dr. Doug: Would it help to let students take in sugar during a test?) Studies show that self-control and intelligence are correlated.
Tags: Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow
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Sunday, January 6th, 2013
To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others by Daniel Pink is a fresh look at the art and science of selling, which is something we all do. If you want to better understand others’ perspectives, make your message clearer and more persuasive. Click below to purchase this book. It is purposeful and practical and may change how you see the world as it transforms what you do at work, at school, and at home.
Introduction
- Over the years, people in sales have often been seen as intellectual lightweights and dodgy characters. Even though 9% of us work in direct sales, some view it as the white-collar equivalent of cleaning toilets. The truth is, however, we are all involved in sales. We are all constantly trying to persuade, convince, and influence others. Studies show that collectively we are devoting 40% of our time on the job trying to move others. Even people in education and medical fields (Ed-Med), which are part of the fastest growing industries, engage in sales-like activities every day. As a result, non-sales selling is far more prevalent than selling in a traditional sense. People also consider this one of the most critical components in their professional success.
Entrepreneurship, Elasticity, and Ed-Med
- Entrepreneurs understand that segmenting job functions doesn’t always work. As small businesses proliferate, more people must have an elastic skill set, which includes a sales component. The U.S. even has more than twenty-one million people who are self-employed and therefore, have to sell themselves, and this number is growing. The Internet has knocked down barriers to entry by small operations. For example, the number of Etsy online shops is approaching one million. Kickstarter has helped people raise over $200 million to get projects off the ground, and smartphones can accept credit cards anywhere. Even bigger businesses are getting flattered with fewer people doing more varied things.
Ed-Med
- Jobs in education and medical care have increased from about 15% to 20% in the last twelve years. In the same time manufacturing jobs have gone from 17% to 12%. Ed-Med jobs are both intent on moving people as in changing what they know, think, and do. Teachers must convince students to part with time, attention, and effort as they sell a lesson. The same happens in health care as practitioners promote healthier behaviors. In any case, you have a better chance of moving someone if the proposed movement is in line with their personal goals. Letting kids choose what to write about and telling patients that you need to tap their expertise regarding their own bodies are examples of ways to move people.
From Caveat Emptor to Caveat Venditor
- Thanks to the abundance of information available on the Internet, today’s buyer has virtually as much information as today’s seller. As a result, sellers are no longer likely to live up to the outdated stereotype that includes terms like pushy, slick, and sleazy. In a world of information parity, the seller (vendor) is more likely to be one who has to beware (caveat). In many cases, the buyer knows more than the seller about a product and pricing. The same thing happens in education and medicine where students and patients can do research and know things that teachers and physicians do not. In the past, smart people were less likely to go into sales. Today, intelligence and creativity are essential.
Tags: Daniel Pink, To Sell is Human
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Monday, February 10th, 2020
Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time by Gaia Vince tells the big picture story of human evolution from its beginnings to the present. Unlike most history books that focus on one era, this book has it all. It is based on our best scientific knowledge and focuses on the evolutionary triad of genes, environment, and culture. It provides a perfect framework for anyone who wants to understand where we came from and where we might be heading. It’s like taking a step back from looking at individual trees and seeing the great story of the human forest. I strongly recommend this to scholars and students in and discipline.
Introduction
- Evolution has created a mechanism where a human being can be built from a single cell. We are also formed in a cultural developing bath. We are not like other animals, yet we evolved from the same process. In this book, Gaia set out to understand our exceptional nature and what alchemy created the planet-altering force of nature know as humanity. Enjoy her remarkable evolution story that rests on the relationship between our genes, the environment, and our cultures. The book is organized by the four key agents that have driven our evolution: Fire, Word, Beauty and Time. It is the interweaving of these four threads that created the extraordinary us. She also focuses on the collaboration between disciplines that is responsible for our transcendence.
Genesis
- 1. Conception: Here we have a big picture overview from the big bang to the point where our ancestors left the forests for the savanna. This is a story that all schools should have in the curriculum somewhere.
- 2. Birth: Humans are exceptional because we learn from each other. This makes our culture cumulative. The most complex things chimps do is crack nuts. About 1.8 million years ago Homo Erectus emerged with a much bigger brain than previous humans. Over time variations developed and interbred. Neanderthals were the most common competitors to Homo Sapiens (us). That’s why we still carry Neanderthal genes to this day. Homo Sapiens may have made it as they were a global species. This protected them from climate change and natural disasters like volcanos.
Fire
- 3. Landscaping: Once microorganisms started generating oxygen and forests grew fire could happen. Our muscles use oxygen to ‘burn’ fuel, but they do it slower. Once humans started using fire they became more social, cooperative, and better able to learn from each other. Fire chemically changes food making it easier to digest. Fire also sanitizes food and can serve as a source of warmth and protection at night. Hunting wild animals for food required cooperation and specialization. Older people knew more about hunting while younger people were faster and stronger. The best spear maker was probably not the best spear thrower. When humans figured out how to make fire this allowed them to easily relocate to find larger concentrations of animals for food. As all this played out we evolved an upright posture and grew larger brains. Watch a man making fire here.
- 4. Brain Building: By harnessing fire our brains could grow beyond the limits imposed by biology. Bigger brains also allow for more sociability and cooperation. Bigger brains lead to babies being born much more immature. This required much more care and cooperation as other adults helped with child care. The development of menopause resulted in infertile grandmothers who could help raise children. The only other animals who have menopause are a few whales. Gram for gram the brain uses a lot of energy. It’s only 2% of the body by weight but uses 20% of the energy. Cooking food partially digests food so humans had to spend less time eating and developed a weaker jaw that was better for speaking. Meanwhile, our guts developed a bacteria culture that also helps us digest our food. Unfortunately, today we eat a lot of processed food containing too much sugar, salt, and fat.
- 5. Cultural Levers: As humans formed larger and larger groups the cultures (collective brains) that came with them gave them leverage to innovate and specialize. A huge breakthrough was the invention of pottery, which is what you get when you make something out of clay and expose it to a hot fire over time. With pottery, you can make soup, store food, and transport it. This was a big improvement over skins, baskets, bladders, or boxes.
- As we learned how to make fires hotter we were able to force metals out of their oxidized ores. Copper was first. The discovery of the alloy bronze, a mixture of copper and tin, created a harder metal for making tools, weapons, and nails. Even hotter temperatures allow for the production of iron and the more recent alloy of iron and carbon known as steel.
- Another key practice that became possible as brain size increased was teaching. Changes in the environment also triggered a burst of cultural variation that promoted survival. Complex language evolved along with tools and teaching. Bigger populations also allowed for longer cultural levers.
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Saturday, January 25th, 2014
Uncharted: Big Data as a Lens on Human Culture by Erez Aiden & Jean-Baptiste Michel (© 2013, Riverside Books: NY, NY) explains how they use Google’s repository of 30 million digitized books to investigate human culture. Their analytical tool lets them see how words and phrases have come and gone over the years and what these trends can tell us about ourselves. As more data becomes available they see many positive and negative possibilities. This is one book you don’t want to miss. Click at the bottom of any page to get a copy of this important book.
Erez Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel
- Erez has a PhD from Harvard and MIT. After stints at Harvard and Google he joined the faculty of Baylor and Rice were he directs the Center for Genome Architecture. In 2009 he was named as one of the world’s top innovators under 35 and has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
- Jean-Baptiste is a French and Mauritian entrepreneur and scientist and the founder of Quantified Labs. He is an associate scientist at Harvard and a former visiting faculty member at Google. He has a PhD from Harvard, is a TED Fellow, and one of Forbe’s “30 Under 30” winners.
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Friday, November 24th, 2023
Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind by Judson Brewer offers actionable advice for anyone who suffers from anxiety. There is also a free app available that can further help make your life less stressful. Learn how you can use curiosity and kindness to your advantage. While I don’t suffer from anxiety, I know many people who do. If you are anxious, you need this book. It also makes a great gift for anxious friends and family. Thanks, Jud.
Introduction
- Judson has MD and PhD degrees which took eight years to complete. He then went on to a career as a psychiatrist doing research on anxiety. He found that anxiety is in and of itself a harmful habit. It hides in peoples’ bad habits and feeds other behaviors. When he realized this, due in part to his own panic attacks as a student, he was determined to “science the hell out of it,” to cite a Matt Damon quote from The Martian. During the last decade, his research has lead to excellent results in helping people quit smoking, overeating, and other bad habits with the help of smartphone apps. This book is intended to be a useful pragmatic guide to changing how you understand anxiety so that you can work with it effectively, and as a bonus, break your unhelpful habits and addictions.
Part 0 Understanding Your Mind: The Psychology and Neuroscience of Anxiety
1. Anxiety Goes Viral
- Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is experienced by people who generally worry throughout the day. This usually results in poor sleeping habits. Other symptoms include edginess, restlessness, tiring easily, impaired concentration, irritability, and increased muscle aches. Specific phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder also fall under anxiety diagnoses.
- Anxious parents are likely to have anxious kids. Uncertainty and lack of structure cause anxiety for many. It is tricky to diagnose as most people experience it to some degree. Worries about health, safety, finances, politics, and relationships are the top sources. COVID-19 has certainly added to our collective stress. People with GAD usually also suffer from depression or something else.
2. The Birth of Anxiety
- Anxiety and its close cousin panic are both born from fear. Ironically, fear’s main evolutionary function is helping us survive. Being afraid of dangerous situations and doing something about it is a good thing. The pre-frontal cortex (PFC) portion of our brain is where future scenarios get played out. It thinks slower than the reflexive part of our brain. When it doesn’t have enough information to predict the future it may start working on worst-case scenarios causing anxiety.
- Fear is an adaptive learning mechanism. Anxiety is maladaptive. Fear + Uncertainly = Anxiety. Without past experience or accurate information, it’s easy to turn on the worry switch. This is why fake news, which travels faster than real news, promotes anxiety. Our news media is more likely to give us stories that feed our anxiety than those that make us feel good. (Doug: If the news you watch makes you anxious, consider not watching it.) Anxiety is also contagious. Knowing this and that uncertainty triggers anxiety can help put you more at ease. It is possible to replace old habits like worry with habits that are more rewarding so stay tuned.
3. Habits and Everyday Addictions
- Most of us are addicted to something as addictions are not limited to things like hard drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. Compulsive behaviors like shopping and overeating also fall into this category. Our modern world has increased the likelihood of addictive habits as just about anything is much more available. The goal of the media is to increase clicks and eyeballs. Therefore they design not to inform, but to create addictive experiences. This starts with a Trigger, which is a thought or emotion. Next comes a Behavior like worrying. Finally, we have a Result or Reward such as avoidance or overplanning. Reinforcements and immediate availability are a dangerous formula for modern-day habits and addictions. This is how our brains work and this is important knowledge.
4. Anxiety as a Habit Loop
- Anxiety can act as a trigger that leads to the behavior of worrying. The result of this behavior can be feeling more anxious. That is the loop or cycle. While worrying usually doesn’t work, this doesn’t stop our brain from trying it again and again. Being aware of this is a good place to start. Judson and his team developed an app (Unwinding Anxiety) that they use to teach mindfulness to the subjects of their research. You can get a free trial or pay for the complete program. They used this app on doctors who do not get training on how to handle their emotions in medical school and found success with 63% of their subjects. First, you need to map out your anxiety. Then you tap into your brain’s reward system before you tap into your own neural capacities to step away from anxiety-producing habits.
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Monday, April 6th, 2020
Upstream: How to Solve Problems Before They Happen by Dan Heath deals with the notion of preventing problems before they happen rather than being stuck with constantly fixing things after they break. He discusses barriers to Upstream thinking and offers questions Upstream leaders need to address. Whether you are a leader in your organization or just an ordinary individual trying to reduce stress and live a happier life, this book is a must.
1. Moving Upstream
- The book starts with a parable about two men rescuing drowning children who one after another come past them in a river. When one man stops the effort to head Upstream his friend asks what he is doing. The man says that he is going Upstream to tackle the man who is throwing the kids into the river. The key point is that Upstream efforts are aimed at preventing problems while Downstream efforts react to problems once they’ve occurred.
- An example is Expedia’s 58% call support rate. When they looked at the problem they found that none of their teams were judged on this number. Once they looked at the reasons for the calls it was easy to lower the rate to 15%. Another example compares one police officer who stands on the corner causing people to slow down and preventing accidents to another who hides and gives out tickets. Dan sees health care as one area where the US needs to shift to more Upstream efforts as other developed countries have done. The general goal in this book, therefore, is that we should all shift more of our energies Upstream.
Section 1 – The Three Barriers to Upstream Thinking
2. Problem Blindness
- Problem blindness happens when we believe that negative outcomes are natural and unavoidable. A successful example of fighting this problem happened in the Chicago Public Schools where the graduation rate in 1998 was 53%. They found that the key to graduation was a successful freshman year and a program to attack this problem was put in place. It involved teachers getting to know individual students better, giving more support, and collaborating with each other to help students in need. By 2018 the graduation rate had risen to 78%.
- Sometimes we miss problems because we focus on one thing and miss a problem in our peripheral vision. In the 1960s and 1970s, sexual harassment had been normalized in the workplace to the extent that women were encouraged to embrace it. In 1975 a journalist coined the term sexual harassment. Now that the problem had a name demanding a solution was an implied obligation.
- Another example relates to the extensive use of C-sections for child delivery in Brazil. They increased as they were convenient since they could be scheduled and they resulted in more money for the doctors. They also resulted in more babies ending up in intensive care as they were born sooner than necessary. Thanks to one woman and one doctor who saw the problem and took action, the C-section percentage is now coming way down.
3. A Lack of Ownership
- An example of this issue goes back to the Chicago Public Schools with its dismal graduation rate. It got that way because the adults saw it as the kids’ problem. It was greatly improved when the adults decided to make it their problem. There is a story here about a man who owned a carpet business. When he read about our environmental problems he decided to see what he could do. He motivated everyone in the company to look for ways to do things like recycling old carpets. When a doctor in Tennessee found out that more kids died inside cars than outside cars he went to work in 1976 on legislation requiring car seats for kids. By 1985 all 50 states had car seat laws. In short, upstream work is generally chosen rather than demanded. If you find yourself saying “it’s not my problem,” you are likely living downstream.
4. Tunneling
- When you are reacting to problems it can be like you are in a tunnel just digging forward. You don’t have time to step back and take a system-wide look at why the problem exists. Such time would be slack time and it is smart to build slack time for system thinking into your schedule. Poverty tends to cause more tunneling as it reduces bandwidth and causes stress. People who aren’t poor can solve some of their problems with money, which leaves more resources for the problems that money can’t solve. Dan gives examples of situations where tunneling gets in the way of upstream problem-solving.
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Friday, May 5th, 2023
Valedictorians at the Gate: Standing Out, Getting In, and Staying Sane While Applying to College by Becky Munsterer Sabky is a must-read for high school students and their parents. It takes you behind the scenes of the crazy process of college admissions as it explains the value of character, being thorough, and staying curious. I’ve summarized over 200 books since I started in 2009, and I can’t say I have enjoyed any of them more than this. Congratulations, Becky, and thanks.
Preface
- Becky’s experience includes two years in the Saint Lawrence admissions office, followed by thirteen at Dartmouth, which is one of the so-called elite Ivy League schools. She was crushed when Dartmouth rejected her but had many valuable experiences at Colby College, her alma mater. She even picked up a master’s degree from Dartmouth.
- All this gives her sufficient expertise to write this advice book about applying, not competing, to college. This book will help students value open windows rather than obsessing about closed doors. If you are looking for financial aid advice, don’t look here. This is all about finding the college that is right for you, creating your best application, and getting off to a good start.
1. The Big Picture
- College admissions is a business that first does what is good for the college. Students must first have sufficient academic skills to make the grade, but they need something more that makes them stand out at selective schools. Diversity is a big deal today, and there is nothing you can do to change your race, ethnicity, or poverty status. (Doug: you can at least pretend to change your gender, so being trans is probably a plus at many schools). Even if you are a white guy, you can appear somewhat diverse if you have special skills or qualities.
- If you have family members who attended college, consider applying where they went as a legacy. Your chances of admission go way up. It may also help if you are from somewhere in the US where other students aren’t applying; think North Dakota. If your parents are wealthy, be sure to contact the development office. (Doug: From my experience writing student recommendations, I know that the quality of teacher and counselor recommendations is a big deal. I once got a letter from Princeton telling me how my letter led to a student’s acceptance. In my case, I wrote my daughter’s recommendation and emailed it to her counselor, who put his name on it and sent it in.)
The College Search
2. First Steps
- The big idea is to make the most of high school. When you are a senior, it’s too late to develop good writing skills that will make college applications much easier. Take challenging courses, but don’t go overboard. You need to have time to do other things. It doesn’t matter if you pick up a paintbrush, an oar, or a trumpet as long as you do something beyond your high school coursework.
- Familiarize yourself with the resources in the guidance office during your freshman year. These resources are often underutilized. Familiarize yourself with the entire course offerings at your school and note which ones have prerequisites. At some point, find out if the colleges you are interested in accept the common application.
3. Creating the Right College List
- Apply to as many schools as you can reasonably visit. Check college test scores/admissions data to help gauge your probability of being accepted. Ideally, you will only apply to schools that you feel excited about, so do your homework and get excited.
- Many colleges offer price calculators online that will allow you to estimate out-of-pocket expenses. Ask your counselors, teachers, and trusted family and friends for advice. (Doug: I advise knowing what you want to major in first. If you decide after year one, you may be unable to take all the courses you need to finish in four years. Most of the people I know who switched majors took an extra year.
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Friday, March 22nd, 2024
Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions About What to Believe Online by Mike Caulfield and Sam Wineburg should be the textbook for any course in high school and college that deals with verifying information on the Internet. Its lessons are easy to absorb and remember, which means that it lives up to its lofty title. Get your copy today.
Introduction
- Prior to the arrival of the Internet, the information we received was already processed by society’s gatekeepers and niche information was seldom available. The Internet was supposed to change all that. While we know that much of what we find on the Internet is false, the skills we inherited from the pre-Internet age are not much use in separating truth from fiction. This well researched book may not protect you from all errors of judgement, but it should make such errors fewer and farther between.
1. Get Quick Context: It Can Take as Little as Thirty Seconds, Seriously!
- Most hoaxes can be quickly disposed of with a simple Internet news search. As you face claims of fact there are three contexts that you should consider. They are the source, the claim itself, and your own level of expertise on the matter. As you reason about a specific piece of content there are certain things to do that involve the acronym SIFT. The first is STOP and ask what you know about the claim. Next INVESTIGATE the source to see if it’s trustworthy. Proceed to FIND other coverage. Finally, if possible, TRACE the claim to its original source. The authors give several examples and warn that just because a claim seems far fetched doesn’t mean that it is.
2. Cheap Signals: Or, How Not to Get Duped
- A cheap signal is one that costs little or nothing and is easy for any con artist to produce. Just because a website has a snazzy look and is well written means nothing. Some legitimate sites may not look totally professional. CRAAP is an acronym for the things you should consider as you evaluate a site. Currency deals with when the content was posted. Relevance deals with how the topic fits with what you are looking for. Authority deals with the credentials of the author. Accuracy means you can verify the information with another source. Purpose deals with the aim of the organization publishing the site.
- Even if a site passes all five CRAAP tests, it still may be a front for an industry promoting its products. It may be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. You should always read the URL of any new site you visit. It can help you spot imposters. The suffixes are important. Dot-com sites are supposed to be commercial and usually try to sell you something, but that is not always the case. (Doug: My site is a dot-com but I’m just providing free resources like this summary.) Dot-orgs are supposed to be non-profit organizations, but beware. Pretty much anyone can get a dot-org site. Also, beware of data bases where anyone can add a record.
3. Google: The Bestie You Thought You Knew
- In 2014 Google started putting descriptive search results at the top of the results page. They called it a featured snippet. Google says that they create the snippets from trusted sites based on the keywords in your search. They are very helpful when things are clear, but may not be when things are vague or complex. The keywords you select are important and you usually need several good ones in a search to get good results. Featured snippets may not provide the best answer.
- Google is not neutral. It tries to give you what you want. Try to avoid searches that broadcast your preferences. Choose neutral search terms that don’t contain words like good or bad. Try searching “are soda taxes a good idea” and “are soda taxes a bad idea” as a example of how this works.
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