See the categories below for a curated list of some great books for educators
Most of these recommended books are available at the PHS Library in multiple formats. Click HERE to see .
Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising—on campus as well as nationally. How did this happen?
First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being and ancient wisdom from many cultures. Embracing these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—interferes with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. It makes it harder for them to become autonomous adults who are able to navigate the bumpy road of life. Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that have intersected to promote the spread of these untruths. They explore changes in childhood such as the rise of fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised, child-directed play, and the new world of social media that has engulfed teenagers in the last decade. They examine changes on campus, including the corporatization of universities and the emergence of new ideas about identity and justice. They situate the conflicts on campus within the context of America’s rapidly rising political polarization and dysfunction.
This is a book for anyone who is confused by what is happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live, work, and cooperate across party lines.
What makes Denmark the happiest country in the world - and how do Danish parents raise happy, confident, successful kids year after year? This upbeat and practical guide reveals the habits of the happiest families on earth. With illuminating examples and simple yet powerful advice, the authors present six essential principles, which spell out P-A-R-E-N-T.
In our culture, we are constantly comparing and critiquing, so it is no surprise that being a teenager today can be really tough. As a teenager, you know that just about everybody wants to give you some sort of label: smart or dumb, athletic or awkward, pretty or un-pretty. Unfortunately, in our labeling obsession, we often miss something much more important; the fact that each of us is an individual of infinite worth. This book is intended to help you discover that infinite, individual worth
In The Gardener and the Carpenter, pioneering developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik argues that the familiar 21st-century picture of parents and children is profoundly wrong - it's not just based on bad science, it's bad for kids and parents, too. Drawing on the study of human evolution and her own cutting-edge scientific research into how children learn, Gopnik shows that although caring for children is profoundly important, it is not a matter of shaping them to turn out a particular way. Children are designed to be messy and unpredictable, playful and imaginative, and very different both from their parents and from each other. The variability and flexibility of childhood lets them innovate, create, and survive in an unpredictable world. "Parenting" won't make children learn - but caring parents let children learn by creating secure, loving environments.
On the surface, capable teenage boys may look lazy. But dig a little deeper, writes child psychologist Adam Price in He’s Not Lazy, and you’ll often find conflicted boys who want to do well in middle and high school but are afraid to fail, and so do not try. This book can help you become an ally with your son, as he discovers greater self-confidence and accepts responsibility for his future.
Seriously. In her work across Canada and the US, child psychologist Jody Carrington has met hundreds of kids, families, and their support systems. Regardless of where she’s traveled or the specific circumstances of these encounters, the message she’s received from concerned parents and educators has been the same: Our kids are okay only if those of us trying to support them are okay. During a child’s development, educators become a crucial connection point, with the potential to make a huge impact on a student’s well-being. But are the educators okay? Jody Carrington believes that most great educators want to make a difference. However, many educators are finding it more and more difficult "these days" to love what they do. It's time we did a better job of looking after them first. Plain and simple. This book is for those who work in educational settings: our teachers, bus drivers, administrators, educational assistants, librarians, administrative assistants, and custodians. It’s also for anyone who leads, loves, and supports them. If you have a kid, work with a kid, or love a kid, you will find something inspiring in these pages, possibly even game-changing.
Boys and their communities are challenged today in ways they have not been before. Dr. Michael Gurian has studied and served children and their families for 30 years. His The Wonder of Boys (1996) is credited with sparking the "boys’ movement". In Saving Our Sons, he features the latest research in male emotional intelligence, male motivation development, neurotoxicity and the male brain, and electronics and video game use. Linking practical solutions with strategic new policies based on 20 years of field work through the Gurian Institute, Dr. Gurian provides a seven-stage model for the journey to manhood in the new millennium. Moving effortlessly between the practical and the political, Dr. Gurian also tackles social and cultural issues facing our sons.
A fantastic book about teenage development, especially girls, but it relates to all teens. Invaluable information for any parent or educator.
In this sane, highly engaging, and informed guide for parents of daughters, Dr. Damour draws on decades of experience and the latest research to reveal the seven distinct—and absolutely normal—developmental transitions that turn girls into grown-ups, including Parting with Childhood, Contending with Adult Authority, Entering the Romantic World, and Caring for Herself. It provides realistic scenarios and welcome advice on how to engage daughters in smart, constructive ways, Untangled gives parents a broad framework for understanding their daughters while addressing their most common questions.
The generation now coming of age has been taught three Great Untruths: their feelings are always right; they should avoid pain and discomfort; and they should look for faults in others and not themselves. These three Great Untruths are part of a larger philosophy that sees young people as fragile creatures who must be protected and supervised by adults. But despite the good intentions of the adults who impart them, the Great Untruths are harming kids by teaching them the opposite of ancient wisdom and the opposite of modern psychological findings on grit, growth, and antifragility. The result is rising rates of depression and anxiety, along with endless stories of college campuses torn apart by moralistic divisions and mutual recriminations.
This is a book about how we got here. First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt take us on a tour of the social trends stretching back to the 1980s that have produced the confusion and conflict on campus today, including the loss of unsupervised play time and the birth of social media, all during a time of rising political polarization.
This is a book about how to fix the mess. The culture of “safety” and its intolerance of opposing viewpoints has left many young people anxious and unprepared for adult life, with devastating consequences for them, for their parents, for the companies that will soon hire them, and for a democracy that is already pushed to the brink of violence over its growing political divisions. Lukianoff and Haidt offer a comprehensive set of reforms that will strengthen young people and institutions, allowing us all to reap the benefits of diversity, including viewpoint diversity.
This is a book for anyone who is confused by what’s happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live and work and cooperate across party lines.
After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?
In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.
Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems” that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.
Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.
If you've ever struggled to motivate the young people in your sphere of influence, Answering Why is the game-changer you've been looking for. From the urgent skills gap crisis to the proven strategies to inspire our youngest generations, Answering Why addresses the burning questions faced by educators, employers, and parents everywhere. Author, CEO, and generational expert Mark C. Perna shares his wide experience and profound success as both a single dad and performance consultant for education and workforce development across North America.
An extremely engaging book on pedagogy, professional development, and the art of teaching.
Launched with a hugely popular New York Times Magazine cover story, Building a Better Teacher sparked a national conversation about teacher quality and established Elizabeth Green as a leading voice in education. Green's fascinating and accessible narrative dispels the common myth of the "natural-born teacher" and introduces maverick educators exploring the science behind their art. Her dramatic account reveals that great teaching is not magic, but a skill―a skill that can be taught. Now with a new afterword that offers a guide on how to identify―and support―great teachers, this provocative and hopeful book "should be part of every new teacher’s education" (Washington Post).
Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising—on campus as well as nationally. How did this happen?
First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being and ancient wisdom from many cultures. Embracing these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—interferes with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. It makes it harder for them to become autonomous adults who are able to navigate the bumpy road of life. Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that have intersected to promote the spread of these untruths. They explore changes in childhood such as the rise of fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised, child-directed play, and the new world of social media that has engulfed teenagers in the last decade. They examine changes on campus, including the corporatization of universities and the emergence of new ideas about identity and justice. They situate the conflicts on campus within the context of America’s rapidly rising political polarization and dysfunction.
This is a book for anyone who is confused by what is happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live, work, and cooperate across party lines.
From the locker room to the living room to the boardroom—how winners become winners . . . and stay that way. Is success simply a matter of money and talent? Or is there another reason why some people and organizations always land on their feet, while others, equally talented, stumble again and again? There’s a fundamental principle at work–confidence–that makes the difference between winning and losing in any competition, be it a high school basketball game or a high-stakes business situation. In Confidence, Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter shows why organizations of all types may be brimming with talent but not be winners. Based on her extraordinary investigation of success and failure in companies such as Continental Airlines and Verizon and sports teams such as the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles, as well as the arenas of education, health care, and politics, Kanter explores a new theory and practice of success and provides people in leadership positions with a prescriptive program for maintaining a winning streak or turning around a downward spiral. Packed with brilliant, practical ideas, Confidence provides fresh thinking about success in all facets of life—from the factors that can make or break corporations and governments to the keys for successful relationships in the workplace or at home.
Presents groundbreaking, practical solutions to a critical issue for our nation: how to transform our school system. He argues for an end to out outmoded industrial revolution system and proposes a highly personalized, organic approach . . .
Pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth shows parents, educators, students, and businesspeople - both seasoned and new - that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a focused persistence called "grit".
Utah English Teacher of the Year and sought-after speaker Mike Roberts brings you 10 quick and easy classroom management hacks that will make your classroom the place to be for all your students. He shows you how to create an amazing learning environment that actually makes discipline, rules and consequences obsolete, no matter if you're a new teacher or a 30-year veteran teacher.
Modern teaching is not about your ability to deploy a flashy education app or attract TikTok followers. Instead, it’s a mindset where you keep student success at the forefront of your instruction. Today’s teachers have a unique opportunity to reflect on their values, rethink their lessons, and reevaluate what is essential to meet the needs of modern students. In Hacking Modern Teaching, Mike Roberts, an award-winning middle school educator and instructional coach, offers modern teaching hacks to help today’s teachers.
Americans have lost touch with their history, and in Lies My Teacher Told Me Professor James Loewen shows why. After surveying eighteen leading high school American history texts, he has concluded that not one does a decent job of making history interesting or memorable. Marred by an embarrassing combination of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, sheer misinformation, and outright lies, these books omit almost all the ambiguity, passion, conflict, and drama from our past. In this revised edition, packed with updated material, Loewen explores how historical myths continue to be perpetuated in today's climate and adds an eye-opening chapter on the lies surrounding 9/11 and the Iraq War. From the truth about Columbus's historic voyages to an honest evaluation of our national leaders, Loewen revives our history, restoring the vitality and relevance it truly possesses. Thought-provoking, nonpartisan, and often shocking, Loewen unveils the real America in this iconoclastic classic beloved by high school teachers, history buffs, and enlightened citizens across the country. 2018 Updated edition.
About how to design a communication (lesson, presentation, marketing campaigns, etc.) in a way that “sticks,” is memorable.
Mark Twain once observed, “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.” His observation rings true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus news stories circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas—entrepreneurs, teachers, politicians, and journalists—struggle to make them “stick.”
In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the human scale principle, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating curiosity gaps. Along the way, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds—from the infamous “kidney theft ring” hoax to a coach’s lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony—draw their power from the same six traits.
A great book about the science of learning.
To most of us, learning something "the hard way" implies wasted time and effort. Good teaching, we believe, should be creatively tailored to the different learning styles of students and should use strategies that make learning easier. Make It Stick turns fashionable ideas like these on their head. Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners.
After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this brilliant book, she shows how success in school, work, sports, the arts, and almost every area of human endeavor can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities. People with a fixed mindset—those who believe that abilities are fixed—are less likely to flourish than those with a growth mindset—those who believe that abilities can be developed. Mindset reveals how great parents, teachers, managers, and athletes can put this idea to use to foster outstanding accomplishment.
Update to her first book on Mindset above.
In most fields, especially those that are complex and unpredictable, generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. Why it is important to have a broad, general skill set and knowledge base.
You can read Chapter 4 "Learning, Fast and Slow" here.
In this era of extreme political polarization, it’s tempting to believe nothing can be done to heal a nation that is so obviously divided and led by dysfunctional politicians.
But there is a relatively simple and powerful way to begin the healing, and at the same time prepare the next generations of leaders for the rigorous demands of a constantly changing economy and society. The solution offered by this intriguing book is for schools across the country to focus on developing in students the skills of successful debaters. These are the skills—so clearly lacking in contemporary society—of listening and persuading, through civil discourse backed by fact-based evidence and reason.
Resolved explains how one simple educational reform can help address the nation’s political divide and at the same time help ensure that today’s young people will actually enjoy learning, and thus will have the necessary skills to lead productive and economically rewarding lives. The book offers practical ideas about a positive future for parents, educators, state legislators, business leaders—in fact, anyone interested in how debate-centered education can fundamentally change the country for the better.
Called “the sleeper hit of the publishing season” by The Boston Globe, Shop Class as Soulcraft became an instant bestseller, attracting readers with its radical (and timely) reappraisal of the merits of skilled manual labor. On both economic and psychological grounds, author Matthew B. Crawford questions the educational imperative of turning everyone into a “knowledge worker,” based on a misguided separation of thinking from doing. Using his own experience as an electrician and mechanic, Crawford presents a wonderfully articulated call for self-reliance and a moving reflection on how we can live concretely in an ever more abstract world.
A fascinating look at the teaching profession through the decades. It puts into context many of the issues we are dealing with today.
In The Teacher Wars, a rich, lively, and unprecedented history of public school teaching, Dana Goldstein reveals that teachers have been embattled for nearly two centuries. She uncovers the surprising roots of hot button issues, from teacher tenure to charter schools, and finds that recent popular ideas to improve schools—instituting merit pay, evaluating teachers by student test scores, ranking and firing veteran teachers, and recruiting “elite” graduates to teach—are all approaches that have been tried in the past without producing widespread change. The Teacher Wars upends the conversation about American education by bringing the lessons of history to bear on the dilemmas we confront today. By asking “How did we get here?” Dana Goldstein brilliantly illuminates the path forward.
The original Visible Learning research concluded that one of the most important influencers of student achievement is how teachers think about learning and their own role. In Ten Mindframes for Visible Learning, John Hattie and Klaus Zierer define the 10 behaviors or mindframes that teachers need to adopt in order to maximize student success.
This unique and ground-breaking book is the result of 15 years research and synthesises over 800 meta-analyses on the influences on achievement in school-aged students. It builds a story about the power of teachers, feedback, and a model of learning and understanding.
Today we think statistics are the enemy, numbers used to mislead and confuse us. That’s a mistake, Tim Harford says in The Data Detective. We shouldn’t be suspicious of statistics - we need to understand what they mean and how they can improve our lives: they are, at heart, human behavior seen through the prism of numbers and are often “the only way of grasping much of what is going on around us”. If we can toss aside our fears and learn to approach them clearly - understanding how our own preconceptions lead us astray - statistics can point to ways we can live better and work smarter.
The Happiness Hypothesis is a book about ten Great Ideas. Each chapter is an attempt to savor one idea that has been discovered by several of the world's civilizations - to question it in light of what we now know from scientific research, and to extract from it the lessons that still apply to our modern lives and illuminate the causes of human flourishing.
The best-selling author of Born to Run now travels to the Mediterranean, where he discovers that the secrets of ancient Greek heroes are still alive and well on the island of Crete, and ready to be unleashed in the muscles and minds of casual athletes and aspiring heroes everywhere. More than a mystery of remarkable people and cunning schemes, Natural Born Heroes is a fascinating investigation into the lost art of the hero, taking us from the streets of London at midnight to the beaches of Brazil at dawn, from the mountains of Colorado to McDougall's own backyard in Pennsylvania, all places where modern-day athletes are honing ancient skills so they're ready for anything.
In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers" - the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.
"Proofiness," as Charles Seife explains in this eye-opening book, is the art of using pure mathematics for impure ends, and he reminds readers that bad mathematics has a dark side. It is used to bring down beloved government officials and to appoint undeserving ones (both Democratic and Republican), to convict the innocent and acquit the guilty, to ruin our economy, and to fix the outcomes of future elections. This penetrating look at the intersection of math and society will appeal to readers of Freakonomics and the books of Malcolm Gladwell.
A fantastic book about the origins of morality and why different people see the world differently. Highly recommended.
Drawing on his twenty five years of groundbreaking research on moral psychology, Haidt shows how moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. He shows why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians have such different intuitions about right and wrong, and he shows why each side is actually right about many of its central concerns. In this subtle yet accessible book, Haidt gives you the key to understanding the miracle of human cooperation, as well as the curse of our eternal divisions and conflicts. If you’re ready to trade in anger for understanding, read The Righteous Mind.
Called “the sleeper hit of the publishing season” by The Boston Globe, Shop Class as Soulcraft became an instant bestseller, attracting readers with its radical (and timely) reappraisal of the merits of skilled manual labor. On both economic and psychological grounds, author Matthew B. Crawford questions the educational imperative of turning everyone into a “knowledge worker,” based on a misguided separation of thinking from doing. Using his own experience as an electrician and mechanic, Crawford presents a wonderfully articulated call for self-reliance and a moving reflection on how we can live concretely in an ever more abstract world.
The subject of “design thinking” is the rage at business schools, throughout corporations, and increasingly in the popular press—due in large part to the work of IDEO, a leading design firm, and its celebrated CEO, Tim Brown, who uses this book to show how the techniques and strategies of design belong at every level of business.
The myth of innovation is that brilliant ideas leap fully formed from the minds of geniuses. The reality is that most innovations come from a process of rigorous examination through which great ideas are identified and developed before being realized as new offerings and capabilities.
Change by Design explains design thinking, the collaborative process by which the designer’s sensibilities and methods are employed to match people’s needs, not only with what is technically feasible, but what is viable to the bottom line. Design thinking converts need into demand. It’s a human-centered approach to problem solving that helps people and organizations become more innovative and more creative.
Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure out which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door.
The fault, argues this ingenious -- even liberating -- book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology. The problems range from ambiguous and hidden controls to arbitrary relationships between controls and functions, coupled with a lack of feedback or other assistance and unreasonable demands on memorization.
The Design of Everyday Things shows that good, usable design is possible. The rules are simple: make things visible, exploit natural relationships that couple function and control, and make intelligent use of constraints. The goal: guide the user effortlessly to the right action on the right control at the right time.
Drawing on insights from science, she explores why one setting makes us feel anxious or competitive while another fosters acceptance and delight. She reveals how we can harness the power of our surroundings to live fuller, healthier, and truly joyful lives.
Dennis Snow's Lessons from the Mouse provides 10 no-nonsense, practical principles that anyone, anywhere can apply. He entertains while he educates with chapters like "'What Time Is the 3:00 Parade?' Is Not a Stupid Question".
A great book about the need for leaders who are ethically driven and real.
In the wake of continuing corporate scandals there have been few, if any, CEOs that have stepped forward as models of "doing things right"―except the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, Bill George. George has become the unofficial spokesperson for responsible leadership―in business, the media, and academia.
In Authentic Leadership Bill George makes the case that we do need new leaders, not just new laws, to bring us out of the current corporate crisis. He persuasively demonstrates that authentic leaders of mission-driven companies will create far greater shareholder value than financially oriented companies.
Being a leader is about much more than title and management skills—it's fundamentally a question of who we are as human beings. Discover Your True North offers a concrete and comprehensive program for becoming an authentic leader, and shows how to chart your path to leadership success.
Discover Your True North is the best-selling leadership classic that enables you to become an authentic leader by discovering your True North. Originally based on first-person interviews with 125 leaders, this book instantly became a must-read business classic when it was introduced in 2007. Now expanded and updated to introduce 48 new leaders and new learning about authentic global leaders, this revisited classic includes more diverse, global, and contemporary leaders of all ages. New case studies include Warren Buffett, Indra Nooyi, Arianna Huffington, Jack Ma, Paul Polman, Mike Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, and many others. Alongside these studies, former Medtronic CEO Bill George continues to share his personal stories and his wisdom by describing how you can become the leader you want to be, with helpful exercises included throughout the book.
Leadership is not about titles, status, and wielding power. A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for recognizing the potential in people and ideas, and has the courage to develop that potential. When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it with others. We don’t avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into vulnerability when it’s necessary to do good work.
Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That's a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction-at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world. Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose-and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.
A great book about leadership. A must read for anyone in any leadership capacity
The classic book that launched a revolution in the world of leadership.
A great book about focusing/centering your organization and your practice on a core purpose and vision.