Nonfiction Monday: Hacking Your Education

Hacking Your Education: Ditch the Lectures, Save Tens of Thousands, and Learn More Than Your Peers Ever Will Dale J. Stephens

Stephens (founder of UnCollege) lays out his manifesto on why college isn’t the best option for most people and instead offers a new template on how to learn, grow, and find gainful employment.

Stephens was an unschooler and carries that mentality into higher education.

It’s a compelling case-- basically college is crazy expensive and the higher earnings degree holders used to see are shrinking. When you look at how much money you had to put into college in the first place-- it’s not necessarily at great ROI.

In the words of Good Will Hunting (and this quotation opens the book) “You wasted $150000 on an education for $1.50 in late fees at the library?”

Now, personally, I would have been a horrible uncollege student. I didn’t have the personal drive necessary to be successful at it.

But one thing I love about this book is it’s not just for college-- Stephen’s plan for life-long learning is great for learning at any point in your life--high school, college, post-college. He has a lot of really useful exercises to get you started and great ideas to get up and go.

It’s an quick and easy read and a very interesting look at education and how we can, and need to, make it work for us.

Today's Nonfiction Monday is over at Shelf-Employed.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Off to Class

Off to Class: Incredible and Unusual Schools Around the World Susan Hughes

In this brightly-colored, photographic-heavy book, Hughes introduces readers to a variety of schools around the world. These schools were all built or created to fulfill a need that traditional schools didn’t, or couldn’t, fill. We see UNICEF tent schools in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, a classroom on a bus that travels around Mumbai to teach kids who can’t register for school because they lack an address, tour a building designed for students with disabilities (no corners!), and meet a student who lives in New Caledonia but still goes to school in Canada online.

I loved the glimpse into different schools around the world and found many of the solutions to heartbreaking problems to be very uplifting. I liked meeting the students. My only complaint is that it was too short! Each school gets a page spread and I really wanted to learn MORE about many of the schools covered. Which, in the end, is a good complaint to have.

Book Provided by... the publisher, for Cybils consideration

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Nonfiction Monday: Readicide

Today's Nonfiction Monday review isn't a nonfiction book for kids or teens, but rather a nonfiction book for adults who care about children and teen reading, and what we can do to promote reading in children and teens!

Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It Kelly Gallagher

The problem with this book is that the "What You Can Do About It" is really only pertinent if you're a school teacher, and this is a book aimed at school teachers.

But, I do think it's worthwhile read for people concerned about the state of reading and education in this country.

Gallagher's argument is simple--

The way we teach reading in this country is actively making students hate reading, and this hatred of reading is having severely negative consequences on their education. Due to our current over-emphasis on testing* we tend to teach reading by making students read short pieces or novels and then do worksheet after worksheet on them. When we actually let kids read novels, we either fail to give them any context to it, so they can't understand it, or we over-analyze it to death, so they never actually get to enjoy it.

We also don't let them read for fun anymore.

Gallagher's argument is damning and convincing. Luckily, he does have a lot of ways teachers can combat this-- including things to do in the classroom, but also ways to talk to the powers that be. His argument that kids need a balance-- some fun reading, some academic reading, some reading that just gets read, some that gets analyzed, making connections so they know why it matters is inspiring and he makes it seem so easy to implement (although I realize it's probably harder than it looks).

It's a short and easy read, but powerful and I've been thinking about it ever since I finished, wondering what I can do to help, even though I'm not in a classroom.


*Seriously, the SAT, ACT, GRE, and AP tests are all about 3 hours long, and completely grueling. I needed a nap and day off after taking each of them. And I was an adult, or an almost-adult. The standardized tests we make our kids do now are days long. Jobs and school funding depend on these tests. The amount of pressure they're under is insane. Do you know that you can buy study guides for the standardized tests? That everything is around test prep these days? The kids are so stressed that they make me stressed! There's no way this is healthy, and there are so many studies showing how much this hurts learning. But, when in doubt, test! test! and test some more!

See the Nonfiction Monday roundup over at In Need of Chocolate. Check it out!

Book Provided by... interlibrary loan

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.