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Monthly Archives: September 2016
The 10 Best Books for College Teachers – Part 1
As a college teacher who spent many hours during the last ten years reading books, articles, and conference proposals on the art and science of teaching, I believe that the best books for college teachers are the ones that provide … Continue reading
“Yet we now know that a brief distraction can help when we’re stuck on a math problem or tied up in a creative knot and need to shake free.”
After having read my share of books about learning, I was initially reluctant to read this one because a reviewer said it is a “gift to guilt-ridden slackers everywhere.” Fortunately, it’s the review, not the book, that is misleading about … Continue reading
Posted in Pedagogy
Tagged Benedict Carey, How We Learn, learning, learning requires effort, New York Times
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“All was artifice.”
Can a 20-year-old character study still be relevant? In the case of this essay by New Yorker writer Mark Singer, which one British newspaper said offered “clearer insight into the mind” of Donald Trump than the longer biographies, my answer … Continue reading
Posted in non-fiction
Tagged Donald J. Trump, Mark Singer, Trump & Me, truthful hyperbole
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“And yet they, who passed away long ago, still exist in us, as predisposition, as burden upon our fate, as murmuring blood, and as gesture that rise up from the depths of time.”
Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, perhaps the most dog-eared book on my shelves, doesn’t give advice on writing poetry. Instead, it’s what Einstein –his contemporary — might have written if he had been a poet. Compare the … Continue reading
Posted in non-fiction
Tagged Classic advice for poets, Einstein, Letters to a young poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
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“The struggle is really all I have for you because it is the only portion of this world under your control.”
This 2015 winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction – “a work of rare beauty and revelatory honesty” that is “highly provocative, thoughtfully presented” — is a meditation on race as a social construct. Written as a set of … Continue reading