The List Continues – Additional materials to help on your journey

Following are books and other materials discovered after Know Power, Know Responsibility was published that can contribute to reinventing the school model in any community.

  • The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. Lukianoff, a First Amendment expert, and Haidt, a social psychologist, present arguments that recent generations of children have been over-protected in ways that have contributed to a variety of challenges among young adults, especially on college campuses. They present three “Great Untruths” that are at the heart of this situation. While some might counter certain of their arguments, the ideas and context presented will enhance efforts to design effective 21st century learning models. This is also a great companion piece to Gray’s Free to Learn. (Lukianoff, 2018)
  • Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. Brown is well known for her writing and TED Talks on vulnerability. In this book, she presents strong arguments for building teams with a culture for taking risks in order to achieve the teams’ goals. This includes the ability of the leaders to be vulnerable by admitting mistakes, acknowledging they don’t have all the answers, and sharing power. Dare to Lead is a valuable resource when creating teams that will be designing 21st century learning models. (Brown, 2018)
  • Free to Learn by Peter Gray. In more recent language, there have been many discussions of “free-range children.” Developmental psychologist Gray addresses these same ideas using the concept of “free play.” He presents evidence and arguments about the numerous benefits of allowing children to largely direct their own lives. There are exceptionally valuable lessons in this work for those looking to design an effective 21st century learning model for their community. This is also a great companion piece to Lukianoff and Haidt’s The Coddling of the American Mind. (Gray, 2013)
  • David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book, Gladwell analyzes the ways in which those who are typically perceived as underdogs (the Davids) often have incredible advantages over those perceived as the giants (the Goliaths). He even uses the biblical example to show how a wise person would have bet on David to defeat Goliath. The lessons contained here are invaluable in the effort to replace the institutionalized school model with one designed to be effective in and beyond the 21st century. (Gladwell, 2013)
  • Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman won the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences. In this book, he takes a deep, comprehensive look at the functioning of the human brain under a variety of circumstances and how that functioning leads to various thoughts and actions. Though the depth of the material is a lot to digest, it can truly inform the design and elements of new school models being considered. (Kahneman, 2011)

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