Helping Children Succeed
What Works and Why
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Narrated by:
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Paul Tough
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By:
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Paul Tough
About this listen
In How Children Succeed, Paul Tough introduced us to research showing that personal qualities like perseverance, self-control, and conscientiousness play a critical role in children's success.
Now, in Helping Children Succeed, Tough takes on a new set of pressing questions: What does growing up in poverty do to children's mental and physical development? How does adversity at home affect their success in the classroom, from preschool to high school? And what practical steps can the adults who are responsible for them - from parents and teachers to policy makers and philanthropists - take to improve their chances for a positive future?
Tough once again encourages us to think in a brand new way about the challenges of childhood. Rather than trying to "teach" skills like grit and self-control, he argues, we should focus instead on creating the kinds of environments, both at home and at school, in which those qualities are most likely to flourish.
Mining the latest research in psychology and neuroscience, Tough provides us with insights and strategies for a new approach to childhood adversity - one designed to help many more children succeed.
©2016 Paul Tough (P)2016 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Many of us know we're putting too much pressure on our kids - and on ourselves - but how do we get off this crazy train? We want our children to succeed, to be their best, and to do their best, but what if they are not on board? A few years ago, Ned Johnson and Bill Stixrud started noticing the same problem from different angles: even high-performing kids were coming to them acutely stressed and lacking any real motivation. Many complained that they had no real control over their lives.
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Practical, wise, and well researched
- By Andrew on 07-12-18
By: William Stixrud PhD, and others
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Limitless Mind
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- Narrated by: Jo Boaler
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In this revolutionary book, a professor of education at Stanford University and acclaimed math educator who has spent decades studying the impact of beliefs and bias on education, reveals the six keys to unlocking learning potential, based on the latest scientific findings.
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Title does not reflect audience
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By: Jo Boaler
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The Dolphin Way walks readers through Dr. Kang’s four-part method for cultivating self-motivation. The audiobook makes a powerful case that we are not forced to choose between being permissive or controlling. The third option—the option that will prepare our kids for success in a future that will require adaptability - is the dolphin way.
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Very easy way to understand complicated subject
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One day, third-grade teacher Kyle Schwartz asked her students to fill in the blank in this sentence: "I wish my teacher knew _____." The results astounded her. Some answers were humorous; others were heartbreaking; all were profoundly moving and enlightening. The results opened her eyes to the need for educators to understand the unique realities their students face in order to create an open, safe, and supportive place in the classroom. When Schwartz shared her experience online, #IWishMyTeacherKnew became an immediate worldwide viral phenomenon.
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Not worth the time
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When Duke University gave free iPods to the freshman class in 2003, critics said they were wasting their money. Yet when the students in practically every discipline invented academic uses for the music players, suddenly the idea could be seen in a new light - as an innovative way to turn learning on its head. Using cutting-edge research on the brain, Cathy N. Davidson show how attention blindness has produced one of our society's greatest challenges.
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Ready or Not explores how today’s parenting techniques and our myopic educational system are failing to prepare children for their certain-to-be-uncertain future - and how we can reverse course to ensure their lasting adaptability, resilience, health, and happiness.
By: Madeline Levine
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The Myth of the Spoiled Child
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Somehow, deeply conservative assumptions about how children behave and how parents raise them have become the conventional wisdom in our society. It's widely assumed that parents are both permissive and overprotective, unable to set limits and afraid to let their kids fail. We're told that young people receive trophies, praise, and A's too easily, and suffer from inflated self-esteem and insufficient self-discipline. However, complaints about pushover parents and entitled kids are actually decades old and driven, it turns out, by ideology more than evidence.
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good theories, no tangible or practical ideas.
- By Ben on 05-12-15
By: Alfie Kohn
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Back to Normal
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A veteran clinical psychologist exposes why doctors, teachers, and parents incorrectly diagnose healthy American children with serious psychiatric conditions. In recent years there has been an alarming rise in the number of American children and youth assigned a mental health diagnosis. Current data from the Centers for Disease Control reveal a 41 percent increase in rates of ADHD diagnoses over the past decade and a forty-fold spike in bipolar disorder diagnoses. Similarly, diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder has increased by 78 percent since 2002.
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surprisingly useful and specific
- By SaturdayDad on 03-07-14
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Positive Discipline Tools for Teachers
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The positive discipline method has proved to be an invaluable resource for teachers who want to foster creative problem-solving within their students, giving them the behavioral skills they need to understand and process what they learn. Each tool is tailored specifically for the modern teacher, with examples and solutions to each and every roadblock that stands in the way of cooperative and student-centered learning.
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Good ideas but misleading
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An updated and revised edition of the controversial classic - now more relevant than ever - argues that boys are the ones languishing socially and academically, resulting in staggering social and economic costs. After two major waves of feminism and decades of policy reform, women have made massive strides in education. Today they outperform men in nearly every measure of social, academic, and vocational well-being. Christina Hoff Sommers contends that it's time to take a hard look at present-day realities and recognize that boys need help.
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Important Book
- By VeritasPlz on 11-05-18
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What listeners say about Helping Children Succeed
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- Adam Shields
- 09-14-16
The environment matters
My paying job is to manage data for an after school program that works in low income areas and targets low performing students at low performing school. I am always interested in the latest theories and practices that seem to be successful. But I have been working at this job for nearly 15 years. And my wife has been a teacher for even longer. I have seen trends come and go. Solutions are never fast or simple because the problems have been long in coming and are infinitely complex.
Paul Tough is a journalist, a writer for the New York Times and a contributor to This American Life. This is his second book on this theme (the first was How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character). This is a very short book, 145 pages, less than 4 hours of audio. And in that short number of pages there are still 23 chapters. Tough opens by charting out why children from difficult backgrounds have difficulty in school and life. Adversity, stress, trauma, neglect, low attachment and other adversities all impact development. Some of these can literally change DNA, but all impact development of young children, which has a very long term impact on future development.
Helping Children Succeed is more than diagnosing the problem, Tough also attempts to chart out some of the failed solutions and some of the potential viable solutions. There is no pretense that solving problems of education is easy. But because of differences of demographics, population trends and birth rates, the majority of children in schools are now poor, minority or from other difficult to educate subgroups.
Where I think Tough is right is that character issues, internal motivation and 'grit' is more important in the long term than base intelligence. The question is how to develop the internal, and often precognitive, skills that allow kids to do the hard work that is necessary to overcome their educational difficulties.
Tough is not particularly easy on the education system. The culture of control and zero tolerance of students, especially of minority students does not help students develop internal motivation. Traditional behaviorist motivations (rewards for good behavior) often undercut internal motivation. Assessment, which Tough agrees is important, is difficult. So we often measure what is easy to count, not what is important.
There are a variety of examples, but one study that Tough cites took a very large dataset of students and teachers. Traditionally teachers are rewarded for improving test scores. Those teachers are fairly easy to identify. But one study was able to track students that seemed to have changes in motivation and then correlated them to teachers. Teachers that were able to help students learn internal motivation were almost never the same teachers that showed significant improvements in test scores. But students that had teachers that helped them improve in their motivation improved over the long term, not just in that one class.
The larger message of the book is that we can help student succeed. But what is most effective isn't the particular method of teaching grit to the one student. But creating institutions and systems where success is more likely to occur. Early intervention (and he details a number of early intervention programs that do not help), school environments (especially relationships with teachers and other students) and pedagogical systems that are focused deep learning, student focused problems solving and challenge seem to be effective. But changing systems and institutions is long term and difficult compared to rolling out another short term program.
This was a broadly helpful book. It has real research and science behind it. Because I am fairly widely read in the area, there was not a lot that was completely new. But as a short introductory primer, this is a very good place to start a discussion. I can see this being a great book for small group discussions among educators or parent groups. In many ways though, this is also a discouraging book because the problems of scale, time and culture are all working against long term change.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Cowann Owens
- 01-15-17
Very Helpful read for school counslors
As a Social Worker and School Counselor this was a greatly beneficial read on grit
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- Eve
- 07-03-16
Succinct, Timely, and Inspiring
Paul Tough has written another insightful book that highlights the education crisis in the US. This time he expands in the ideas of his last book, to offer proven strategies from educational, cognitive and developmental research. He has a great way of making the research digestible and succinct--allowing it t guide best practices, not his own personal narrative. A great read/listen for people of all backgrounds.
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1 person found this helpful
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- William P
- 06-17-18
Remind yourself why you wanted to be a teacher
This book was truly a gift to read. It gives lots of profound insight into the details of how to fix our messed up educational system. And the best part, it never leaves you wondering, "Well that's great and all Paul, but how the hell do I implement this in my classroom?". The author/reader is above all else: passionate. And it comes across in both the written words and their reading. A great text to read over summer vacation to empower you to plan for next year with a few new ideas in your bag.
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- J. Hannah
- 09-18-17
Great book for advocates of education reform and parents
Great book for review of current literature in education and application of experiential learning programs.
With our current situation in American education, Paul Tough does a very nice job of outlining a few alternative educational methods. H
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- TaCara
- 08-29-16
America needs to put this research into action.
A great portion of our society is inheriting limitations and struggle. We must help change.
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- maria requena
- 03-19-20
Very easy listen and reflective food for thought
Great food for thought on educational systems and understanding what students in low income house holds go through
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- Mae Amaru
- 01-09-18
Insightful
As a parent who grew up in a less than stellar environment I find myself; as most of us do, trying to figure out how to provide a better environment for my children.
This book doesn't only give a clear insight into how to best raise children, but also gave me a great understanding about myself and the effects my upbringing has had on me. I highly recommend this book!
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- Charley
- 02-02-23
Concise and Informative
This concise and informative overview about the kinds of schools that help all children thrive is essential reading for educators looking for answers and a straight forward recipe for change.
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- Wayne
- 08-03-16
I've seldom been more disappointed in a book
Helping Children Succeed is not really a book; it should have been published as an educational journal paper. The text of this book can be easily read in less than two hours. The basic premise is that US public school systems fail to recognize and understand the importance of non-cognitive skills necessary on which to build cognitive learning. The need is especially important to those who have been under stress at home. Defining terms used in the book:
Non-cognitive shills include such factors such as ability to control ones disruptive behavior (self control), ability to delay gratification, grit, perseverance, and internal motivation.
Cognitive skills are simply those necessary to master the traditional subjects taught in school.
Stress as used in this book can be generalized to those factors in the home environment that are often associated with the poor. Examples in the book are violence, parents/others fighting verbally or physically, and general lack of stimulation of the children's verbal and visual learning.
This book (actually it's a paper or a report rather than a true book) is intended to identify and address non-cognitive skills of mostly the students born into poor families. The basic premise is that the lack of adequate non-cognitive shills results in not only poor learning of cognitive skills but also to disruptive disciplinary issues which are especially bad in today's public education environment where zero tolerance for certain behaviors is the norm.
This book lays out the problem it seeks to eliminate or improve very well. But it starts poorly by noting that free school lunches are now provided to 51% of US public school students which is an increase from 1/3 of such students in 1989 But then it claims that this indicates that the number of students coming from homes in poverty has increased to 51%. In making the claim the author fails to point out that the free lunch program applied to students in poverty in 1989 and today it applies not only to students from poor families to all students in communities where the general poverty rate is high. The actual issue the author is addressing is important enough at 33%; factually exaggerating the rate is unnecessary.
The title, Helping Children Succeed, seems to me to imply the author proposes a workable solution. Here the book fails completely. What he does is go through a long list of proposed solutions commenting on the relative effectiveness of each. Some have been ineffective, some have been effective, partially or completely, in a limited number of instances. To quickly summarize, the most effective solutions have dealt with the home environment by teaching the mother positive ways to interact with her infants and small children with emphasis being more interaction is better and positive interaction is critically important. The book appropriately suggests that zero tolerance policies be eliminated. It also notes that preK-3 teachers need to have the ability to focus on positive interaction rather than discipline. Finally, teachers of early grades need learn to teach in a way that interests children and excites their imaginations (do not make the subject a dry memory exercise).
My own time volunteering in schools dealing with grades K-2 suggests there is a special issue the author does not touch upon directly at all: most of the girls even from poor homes generally have more of the non-cognitive skills, especially self control, than their brothers. Or at least their lack of self control leads to less disruptive behavior that is chastised rather than punished. The vast majority of actual punishments are for the disruptive behavior of boys. Girls are more often mildly chastised to talking to each other during class. Based on my observation in K-2 normal behavior by boys is increasingly becoming less tolerated. It is certainly not true of all teachers, but it is true too often. I have personally observed a boy being transferred from a class where the teacher considered him to be her most disruptive student to a classroom where his next teacher considered him a star pupil who never disrupted the class. His behavior was not very different at all, but his second teacher was able to channel his behavior to get very positive results.
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9 people found this helpful