What I'm Reading Next--Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

I just finished reading El capitán Alatriste. I wrote yesterday about how I may have discovered in it a whole new unit for my Spanish 5 class, so today I'll limit myself to a brief recommendation of the book itself. First of all, for those of you who don't feel up to reading a 200+ page book in Spanish, there is an English translation (Captain Alatriste). It's a very fun read. At the heart it is an entertaining adventure story. Captain Alatriste is a veteran of the Spanish wars against the Netherlands in the early 17th century, now back in a decadent and declining Madrid trying to get by as a sword for hire. He takes a job to ambush and kill two unidentified Englishmen, and soon finds himself way over his head in the middle of major historical and political events, just trying to get out with his skin in tact. Layered over the story is the historical and cultural context of one of Spain's (and Europe's) most interesting periods, as it comes out of the Siglo de Oro and finds its power and influence in the world declining. Lope de Vega, Quevedo and Velázquez all appear as characters, as do various kings and princes. It's just fun all around, especially for fans of historical fiction. Enjoy!

Next up: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Sometimes all it takes to get me to read a book is to hit me over the head with it enough times. I first encountered Carol Dweck's name during our faculty development day back in February. The presenter was Harvard neuropsychology professor Jane Bernstein, and she made extensive reference to Dweck's research at Stanford on achievement and success. Largely because of that presentation, Mindset is one of the two summer reading books for faculty. Then there was this NYT piece about the book, which my wife forwarded to me a couple weeks ago. In the end, I got the message, and I'm reading the book. I'll let you know how it is.



Posts about previous titles:
Watership Down
Three Cups of Tea
True History of the Kelly Gang
Lolita
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War

More on the Research-to-Teaching Relationship

While we were up on Long Island this weekend, our friend Dan discovered this blog for the first time, and was reading through some previous posts. When he got to the post about language evolution, he asked me if the things I had learned from Steven Pinker's, The Language Instinct were helpful to me in my everyday teaching of Spanish. My short answer was that, while I found the book completely fascinating, there was very little in it to inform my day-to-day practice of teaching. Knowing more about how we acquire our first language, and what mental structures are in place to assist and guide that process, does not necessarily tell us anything about learning a second language as a teenager, or even in elementary school. The idea that our brains have innate language structures may reassure me that we can learn language, but it doesn't necessarily provide a guide for how to do it.

The conversation reminded me of a video I had seen on a couple of different education blogs. The video is by Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. In it he explains some of the difficulties in applying the discoveries of brain research to education. It is a good warning against thinking we know too much, and especially against the tendency to jump on the brain based research bandwagon.

Here it is: