The definitive book on the rise of “toxic achievement culture” overtaking our kids' and parents' lives, and a new framework for fighting back.

In the ever more competitive race to secure the best possible future, today’s students face unprecedented pressure to succeed. They jam-pack their schedules with AP classes, fill every waking hour with resume-padding activities, and even sabotage relationships with friends to “get ahead.” Family incomes and schedules are stretched to the breaking point by tutoring fees and athletic schedules. Yet this drive to optimize performance has only resulted in skyrocketing rates of anxiety, depression, and even self-harm in America’s highest achieving schools. Parents, educators, and community leaders are facing the same quandary: how can we teach our kids to strive towards excellence without crushing them?

In Never Enough, award-winning reporter Jennifer Breheny Wallace investigates the deep roots of toxic achievement culture, and finds out what we must do to fight back. Drawing on interviews with families, educators, and an original survey of nearly 6,000 parents, she exposes how the pressure to perform is not a matter of parental choice but baked in to our larger society and spurred by increasing income inequality and dwindling opportunities. As a result, children are increasingly absorbing the message that they have no value outside of their accomplishments, a message that is reinforced by the media and greater culture at large.

Through deep research and interviews with today’s leading child psychologists, Wallace shows what kids need from the adults in the room is not more pressure, but to feel like they matter, and have intrinsic self-worth not contingent upon external achievements. Parents and educators who adopt the language and values of mattering help children see themselves as a valuable contributor to a larger community. And in an ironic twist, kids who receive consistent feedback that they matter no matter what are more likely to have the resilience, self-confidence, and psychological security to thrive.

Packed with memorable stories and offering a powerful toolkit for positive change, Never Enough offers an urgent, humane view of the crisis plaguing today’s teens and a practical framework for how to help.

Writing for Academic Success is a vital practical guide for any ambitious student. If you seek to manage your writing effectively, reduce stress, and improve your confidence and efficiency, this book is for you. The authors show you how to acquire communicative rigor in research essays, reports, book and article reviews, exam papers, research proposals, and literature reviews, through to thesis writing, posters and papers for presentation and publication. This second edition has been fully revised to reflect the online learning explosion. The authors provide insightful new material about how to work productively in different online contexts such as with blogs and wikis, setting up an e-portfolio, and raising an online profile. They also set out a focused guide to issues unique to digital communication, and working with and across different media and technologies. The book includes advice on common writing concerns, cross-cultural and inter-disciplinary practices, a list of helpful words and phrases, and subject-specific examples of writing ranging from economics to philosophy to medicine. Writing for Academic Success is essential for undergraduate and postgraduate students both in taught courses and conducting research. The Student Success series are essential guides for students of all levels. From how to think critically and write great essays to planning your dream career, the Student Success series helps you study smarter and get the best from your time at university.

This book explores the role of students' involvement in teacher professional development. Building upon a research study whereby pupils instruct their teachers in the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the author argues that using student voice in this way can result in transformational learning for all those involved. The author presents the processes and experiences of pupils taking on the role of educators as well as the experiences of the teachers receiving such professional development from their students. In doing so, he promotes the innovative use of a student voice initiative to support teaching and learning, with the overarching purpose of improving and transforming teacher-pupil relationships. This book will be of interest and value to students and scholars of pupil voice, teacher professional development and transformational learning.

QuickStudy Bookletss cover the key information on some of the toughest subjects today, helping students boost their grades. The QuickStudy French booklet contains 144 full-color pages and includes: Abbreviations, Nouns, adjectives, key vocabulary and much more! It measures 4.25" x 7.5," small enough to fit in a pocket.

Reading critically, and writing using critical techniques, are crucial skills you need to apply to your academic work. If you need to engage with published (or unpublished) literature such as essays, dissertations or theses, research papers or oral presentations, this proven guide helps you develop a reflective and advanced critical approach to your research and writing. New to this edition: Two new chapters on basic and advanced writing skills More advice on self-bias and perception Updates and additional examples throughout Updated online resources providing additional support. A Companion Website provides additional resources to help you apply the critical techniques you learn. From templates and checklists, access to SAGE journal articles and additional case studies, these free resources will make sure you successfully master advanced critical skills.

This book encourages readers to think about reading not only as an encounter with written language, but as a lifelong habit of engagement with ideas. We look at reading in four different ways: as linguistic process, personal experience, collective experience, and as classroom practice. We think about how reading influences a life, how it changes over time, how we might return at different stages of life to the same reading, how we might respond differently to ideas read in an L1 and L2. There are 44 teaching activities, all founded on research that explores the nature, value and impact of reading as an authentic activity rather than for language or study purposes alone. We consider what this means for schools and classrooms, and for different kinds of learners. The final part of the book provides practical stepping stones for the teacher to become a researcher of their own classes and learners. The four parts of the book offer a virtuous join between reading, teaching and researching. It will be useful for any teacher or reader who wishes to refresh their view of how reading fits in to the development of language and the development of a reading life.

This book is the first dedicated collection aimed at examining teaching and learning issues within criminology. This collection of essays identifies how criminological practices are being shaped by larger developments and changes within the field of scholarship on teaching and learning. Changes include an increased university focus on 'good teaching' rankings and the associated emphasis on the professional development of teaching staff in order to shape them. In the past decade government funding for teaching and learning awards, and the move to sector funding on the basis of 'good teaching' outcomes (student satisfaction, completion rates, etc.), have further fostered developments in teaching and learning practices and the associated scholarship. However, criminology lags behind in responding to these changes. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Criminology aims to fill this gap by examining teaching practices in the hope of fostering a new generation of publications dedicated to scholarship on teaching and learning within the field.

All games are potentially transformative experiences because they engage the player in dynamic action. When repurposed in an educational context, even highly popular casual games played online to pass the time can engage players in a way that deepens learning. Games as Transformative Experiences for Critical Thinking, Cultural Awareness, and Deep Learning: Strategies & Resources examines the learning value of a wide variety of games across multiple disciplines. Organized just like a well-made game, the book is divided into four parts highlighting classroom experiences, community and culture, virtual learning, and interdisciplinary instruction. The author crosses between the high school and college classroom and addresses a range of disciplines, both online and classroom practice, the design of curriculum, and the transformation of assessment practices. In addition to a wealth of practical exercises, resources, and lesson ideas, the book explains how to use a wide and diverse range of games from casual to massively multiplayer online games for self-improvement as well as classroom situations.

All of your hard work in high school has paid off: you have a solid GPA, numerous extracurricular achievements to your name, and an acceptance letter from an excellent college. Now what? What can you expect from the college experience, and how can you get the most out of it? This book will answer your questions and help you find real and lasting success in college. Deans at America's top institutions-including Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, and Columbia-join John Bader to tell you what you need to know to have a rich and rewarding college experience. With wisdom, reassurance, and an insider's perspective, this lively and timely guide will help you develop strategies such as: * Focus on learning, not on grades* Build a new relationship with your parents* Explore your academic choices* Learn from diversity at home and abroad* Cope with failure* Plan boldly for life after college A complete reworking, this second edition includes information on managing workloads and faculty relationships, as well as new material focused on first-generation challenges and international students. Dean's List offers a thoughtful, commonsense approach to higher education that allows students to make the most of their four years on campus-and beyond.

This book offers real-life depictions of how colleges and universities are remaking their Teaching & Learning practices by confronting complacency and building new kinds of futuristic and humanistic programs and practices. Chapter authors present dynamic case studies from 5 institutions in 5 states along with touching interviews that provide insights about being a change agent and impacting institutional change. Probing questions are offered to readers along with a unique worksheet designed to intentionally promote new light bulb moments at one's own college/university. This book offers thought-provoking and instructive insights into the personalities and policies that enhance, or detract from, institutional evolution and provides practical insights into key levers for targeted, transformational growth. Each case study includes information about the Background for the Change Initiative, the Change Initiative Itself, Challenges & Successes, and Lessons Learned.

This book offers real-life depictions of how colleges and universities are remaking their Teaching & Learning practices by confronting complacency and building new kinds of futuristic and humanistic programs and practices. Chapter authors present dynamic case studies from 5 institutions in 5 states along with touching interviews that provide insights about being a change agent and impacting institutional change. Probing questions are offered to readers along with a unique worksheet designed to intentionally promote new light bulb moments at one's own college/university. This book offers thought-provoking and instructive insights into the personalities and policies that enhance, or detract from, institutional evolution and provides practical insights into key levers for targeted, transformational growth. Each case study includes information about the Background for the Change Initiative, the Change Initiative Itself, Challenges & Successes, and Lessons Learned.

- This book covers the production of dissertations in an area where students are much more comfortable writing code than writing academically. - With practical examples of bachelor dissertations and practical research methods utilised in the field of computer science and computer games such as survey methodologies, experimental methodologies, case studies, analysis techniques and reporting techniques, this book will break down the sometimes complicated-seeming nature of the dissertation. - Written to be concise yet comprehensive and with easily accessible language and examples, this book will take the mystery out of undergraduate dissertations in this field.

Written by a professional biologist and experienced writing teacher, this comprehensive guide for students provides detailed instruction on researching, drafting, revising, and documenting lab reports, research papers, reviews, poster presentations, and other commonly assigned projects in biology courses. The seventh edition features updated coverage of research methods and new student examples from a wider variety of sub-disciplines in biology that support students at all levels of biology.

Mary Douglas is an outstanding example of an evaluative thinker at work. In Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, she delves in great detail into existing arguments that portray traditional societies as "evolving" from "savage" beliefs in magic, to religion, to modern science, then explains why she believes those arguments are wrong. She also adeptly chaperones readers through a vast amount of data, from firsthand research in the Congo to close readings of the Old Testament, and analyzes it in depth to provide evidence that traditional and Western religions have more in common than the first comparative religion scholars and early anthropologists thought. First evaluating her scholarly predecessors by marshalling their arguments, Douglas identifies their main weakness: that they dismiss traditional societies and their religions by identifying their practices as "magic," thereby creating a chasm between savages who believe in magic and sophisticates who practice religion.

Doing a doctorate in education is always a challenging and difficult process. Doing a doctorate in education that is based upon ethnographic research is even more so. This title draws together a series of semi-autobiographical reflexive accounts of the process of doing a doctorate using educational ethnography. The individual studies include research into school effectiveness, the experiences of Asian teenagers, sexual cultures in the primary school, mature students on Access courses, primary school management, the experiences of children with special educational needs, teachers' work intensification, the family and school experiences of Year 9 students and a Youth Training programme within English professional football. The range of topics shows how import ethnographic work has become in education. Most of the contributors are still at the early stage of their academic careers. Their writings have not yet attained "classic" status - although some may be on the way to such status. The doctoral process is still a vivid memory in their minds and they have been able to drawn upon their fieldnotes and recollections to construct accounts that shed light on their experience and help to demystify it. The book should be of value for those who are thinking of doing a doctorate, for others still struggling through the process and for their supervisors.

The field of digital technology in education has long been under-theorised. This book will enable the reader to reflect on the use of theory when explaining technology use and set out ways in which we can theorise better. It explores the concept of theory and looks at how teaching, learning, and technology itself have been theorised. With relatable international case studies, it shows how theories underpin optimistic and pessimistic accounts of technology in education. This innovative book will help readers to understand more deeply the use of digital technology in education, as well as the idea of theory and how to develop a distinctly educational approach to theorising.

Taking Control of Writing Your Thesis offers a clear account of the how, what, why and who of working together so that you can produce, finish and submit a successful thesis. Guccione is a Thesis Coach and Thesis Mentoring Programme Designer and is currently researching the barriers to thesis completion; Wellington has supervised and examined numerous dissertations at MA and doctoral level. They draw on these experiences throughout in providing you with expert guidance for your thesis, informed by real student testimonies and with 'Points to Ponder' and a wealth of online resources to support you along the way. Guccione and Wellington show that planning, writing and support for thesis writers is a collaborative venture but also one which you can take ownership of and manage. They show that there are ways to become more connected to what and who you need, and explore the collegial and peer-support structures that are there to be utilised. They situate the student within an educational context viewing them not as the lone researcher able or not able, skilled or unskilled, but as the navigator of the writing process. The authors draw on their experience to provide ways of thinking, and tools for empowering students to feel more in control of the practices of writing about research.

This book provides insights into the practice of trance-based inquiry through arts-based research, serving as a beacon to guide the way to thresholds of ancient, yet novel, transmissions. Embedded in lived experience and theory, this book introduces the reader to the liminal space of place and trance-based inquiry processes entwined with creative artworkings. The interweaving of art, ritual, and trance-based inquiry opens sacred spaces for learning and unlearning that bring spirit into form. Each chapter presents examples from women artists and culminates with experiential practices drawn from the author's decades of creative peregrinations to assist artists, teachers, and researchers in transmitting a conscious way of practicing and creating with trance.

There is much more to exam success than just knowing the course material. There are various skills needed for exams such as revising correctly, exam time management and dealing with nerves and stress, and this book practically deals with these. This text is a practical guide full of original techniques that will help the student to: understand what examiners are really looking for, use revision time more effectively, improve memory, make the most of allotted time in an exam, write better essays, learn how to eliminate exam stress, improve diet and lifestyle to boost energy levels. An essential text for exam success.

This open access book presents the proceedings of the 3rd Indo-German Conference on Sustainability in Engineering held at Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India, on September 16-17, 2019. Intended to foster the synergies between research and education, the conference is one of the joint activities of the BITS Pilani and TU Braunschweig conducted under the auspices of Indo-German Center for Sustainable Manufacturing, established in 2009. The book is divided into three sections: engineering, education and entrepreneurship, covering a range of topics, such as renewable energy forecasting, design & simulation, Industry 4.0, and soft & intelligent sensors for energy efficiency. It also includes case studies on lean and green manufacturing, and life cycle analysis of ceramic products, as well as papers on teaching/learning methods based on the use of learning factories to improve students'problem-solving and personal skills. Moreover, the book discusses high-tech ideas to help the large number of unemployed engineering graduates looking for jobs become tech entrepreneurs. Given its broad scope, it will appeal to academics and industry professionals alike.

As one of the most visited museums in Germany's capital city, the Jewish Museum Berlin is a key site for understanding not only German-Jewish history, but also German identity in an era of unprecedented ethnic and religious diversity. Visitors to the House of Memory is an intimate exploration of how young Berliners experience the Museum. How do modern students relate to the museum's evocative architecture, its cultural-political context, and its narrative of Jewish history? By accompanying a range of high school history students before, during, and after their visits to the museum, this book offers an illuminating exploration of political education, affect, remembrance, and belonging.