A Pleasant Surprise …

As I mark the days until the end of summer, I am also finishing up my summer reading. As I finished the last of my summer reading for school, I received a pleasant surprise when a friend suggested I read two new books. A dear friend suggested I read Dr. Catherine Steiner-Adair’s The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age because she knew how much I enjoyed reading Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, and her recommendation was so spot-on. I enjoyed Steiner Adair’s book primarily because she delves right into the crux of what I believe we as educators and parents must do every day – help children become adults who are capable of coping in the real world. Like Steiner-Adair, I am all for digital literacy, but not at the expense of child’s social-emotional development. Equally good was Sarah Lewis’ The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery. Lewis’ book is now a personal favorite because it spoke to me not only on a professional level (how do we help young children understand the value of failure), but it also struck me (during my reading) that you are never too old to learn the value that comes when you fail at something. If you are unable to read these books before school begins; add them to your Christmas wish list. They are both good reads! If you’d like to learn more about both authors, check out Dr. Steiner-Adair’s website: http://catherinesteineradair.com/ and Sarah Lewis’s TED Talk. I apologize for the lag between my last post and this one. tlb