Expecting only excellence denies the scope of authentic situations. “To demand perfection is to turn our backs on real life, the full range of human experience,” explains Kristin Neff. @neffselfcompassion We benefit from being conscious of the reality of our blemishes. I’ve noticed that I tend to use either/or language about my own attempts to homeschool. …
Homeschooling cannot be shown step-by-step. There is no way to give precise instructions. To rephrase a message from Seth Godin in his book Linchpin about other creative endeavors, “The reason that [homeschooling] is valuable is precisely why I can’t tell you how to do it. If there were a map, there’d be no need to …
The Optimistic Child by Martin E.P. Seligman A child throws down his pencil in exasperation, and shoves the book away, shouting, “I hate this math, I can never learn to do it! The problems are always too hard! My schoolwork is impossible!” As homeschooling parents, we have all seen frustration like this begin to cloud the …
Describing the contrasting responses to the same naturally occurring phenomena, volatility specialist Nassim Nicholas Taleb begins his book Antifragile (Random House 2014) with this analogy, “wind extinguishes a candle and energizes fire.” He argues that rather than suffering from the effects of unpredictable shocks, chaos, and disorder, we must use them. Taleb continues the analogy by describing what it would be like …
Self-proclaimed “wrongologist” Kathryn Schulz writes a witty and compelling book about her unusual perspective on being wrong. The idea of error as bad, Schulz argues, “is our metamistake: we are wrong about what it means to be wrong. Far from being a sign of intellectual inferiority, the capacity to err is crucial to human cognition. …
On Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error Read More »
