Paul Tough

I didn't learn much from this, having already read/heard about both Dweck and Duckworth's research fairly extensively. There were a few interesting case studies, but the chess section was pretty uninteresting, and the behavior of the chess teacher and her justification for why it's ok for so many smart people to squander so much time and attention on chess when there are so many pressing problems in the world was completely unpalatable to me. (Note: playing for fun and enjoying analyzing games or even playing in tournaments as a side interest seems totally fine to me. Devoting your whole life to it and never tapping in to your potential to do real good in the world doesn't.)… (more)

Paul Tough gets real about higher education in the US.

I found this book fascinating. Paul Tough's signature interlinking of academic study findings with journalism's personal stories really works for me. A lot of what he calls out as indisputable findings here are results that I had understood to still be in question (like that top tier institutions really do do much better for their graduates than their high-mid-tier competitors -- take that, Jay Mathews! -- and that the kids who are advantaged by standardized tests tend to be whiter, richer, more male, and less likely to do well in college than the equal sized group of kids who are disadvantaged by their test scores). Lots of chew on here; I'll be recommending it to all my educator friends and anyone else interested in social mobility and in education.… (more)