Book Review: The Values-Driven Organization (Barrett)

As part of an upcoming PD experience, I am reading this book by Richard Barrett, and thought I would share some of the learnings. The subtitle of this book is “Cultural Health and Employee Well-Being as a Pathway to Sustainable Performance”. This alone makes this book compelling, as a resource to offer some answers /…
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Book Review: “Stolen Focus” (Johann Hari)

Stolen Focus, Why you Can’t Pay Attention – and How to Think Deeply Again, by Johann Hari, is a game-changer for me. It captures the tension, the friction, the challenge, opportunity and hope that faces education in the face of diminishing ability to think deeply, pay mindful attention, and to learn deeply. This book explores…
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Book Review: WAYI WAH! by Jo Chrona

Jo Chrona is an educator, philosopher and Two-Spirited woman of RTs’msyen and European Heritage, and this book is the latest in her efforts and passion for creating systemic change to build a truly inclusive experience for all learners. In this way, the book focusses on Indigenous Knowlege (IK) through a larger lens of anti-racist education….
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Book Review: New Power (Heimans & Timms)

In organizations such as Independent Schools rich in history, precedent, tradition and long-standing community members (faculty and families), there is a lot of inertia to move these schools into position of agility, responsiveness and ‘new’. “New Power: How anyone can persuade, mobilize and succeed in our chaotic connected age”, by Heimans and Timms, offers a…
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Book Review: Resurgence (Christine M’Lot & Katya Adamov Ferguson)

“The word ‘resurgence’ means to “rise to prominence.” It is a fitting title for this book, which is a celebration of Indigenous voices, feature narrative, poetic, and artistic works…In contrast to reconciliation, which has been critiqued as “for the colonizers” and for failing to offer the multilayered changes needed to support Indigenous communities, resurgence signals…
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Book Review: “Potlach as Pedagogy” (Sara Florence Davidson & Robert Davidson)

“Potlatch as Pedagogy” was recommended to me by Mike Carlson, a teacher at Wandering Spirits school (TDSB) and an Indigenous educational consultant. This book strongly resonates with “The Nordic Secret” and “Ecological Learning“, in that the approaches are student-centred, holistic and reciprocal. What I really enjoyed about this book was the 9 Principles of “Sk’ad’a”,…
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Book Review: Ecological Learning (F. Steiner)

As you may have noticed from latest book reviews (The Nordic Secret & The Future of Learning), I am doing more research that dives into some historical and contemporary examinations on the purpose of education. in particular, education as preventative medicine: not learning about the conflicts and injustices alone;  rather, (and at a very high…
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Book Review: The Future of Learning (Guy Claxton)

“School is an institution that is deeply, systemically, designed for compliance. The whole apparatus of rules, punishments, timetables and bells, syllabuses and set texts, marking and examination requires and rewards the disposition of diligence, obedience, conscientiousness and correctness: of willingly doing what you are told regardless of whether it seems senseless or untimely. Student choice…
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