DaveShearon: Harry Potter and a French Professor of Education

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I guess this NY Times article (hat tip: Instapundit) paticularly caught my eye as I am in Quebec City for an extra night (thanks to the second straight Nortwest Airlines flight cancelled on me due to mechanical problems). It's by "a professor of literary theory and French literature at the University Institute of Teacher Training in Nice" and was translated from French by the Times. (Hopefully they translate without bias!)

The gist of the critique seems to be that the Harry Potter stories warp kids minds because the characters compete not only with themselves but with each other, buy things -- not only from each other and nearby "boutiques" but (oh! the horror!) from multinational corporations.

And then there's this little jewel of a thought:

The psychological conditioning of the apprentice sorcerers is clearly based on a culture of confrontation: competition among students to be prefect; competition among Hogwarts "houses" to win points; competition among sorcery schools to win the Goblet of Fire; and, ultimately, the bloody competition between the forces of Good and Evil.

Yep. We all know there's no Evil in the world that needs fighting. Those poor young men that flew those planes into the World Trade Center towers were just misunderstood! Right. Somehow, I think Pat Tillman was better grounded in reality than this idiot.

And, of course, he tops it off by suggesting that the series' preference for entrepreneurs over buereaucrats is misplaced. And of course, he can point to the great job the French intelligence service did in identifying the extent of Saddam Husein's weapons of mass destruction. Oops. My bad. Idiot.

Positive Psychology Bookshelf

Fred Luthans: Psychological Capital: Developing the Human Competitive Edge
Discusses the composite construct of "Psycap" in the business world -- combining hope, self-efficacy, optimism, and resilience. (*****)
Kim S Cameron: Positive Leadership: Strategies for Extraordinary Performance
Great book by a great management author. Distills research in positve psyhology and positive organizational studies into four strategies. Provides provides implementation and leadership development tips. (*****)
Martin E. Seligman: The Optimistic Child: Proven Program to Safeguard Children from Depression & Build Lifelong Resilience
Outstanding. Teachers, parents, and anyone concerned with children can get a lot from this book. Covers some of the same territory as The Resilience Factor, but lots of unique material. Worth your time even if you've read Learned Optimism. (*****)
Karen Reivich: The Resilience Factor: 7 Keys to Finding Your Inner Strength and Overcoming Life's Hurdles
If little things get to you more than they should... If setbacks get you down and keep you down... If you'd like to develop more emoitional intelligence... Read this book. Based on Martin Seligman's pioneering work in explanatory style and the authors' research, coaching, and counseling experience, this is a step-by-step action plan to more flexible and accurate thinking, more hope, and more of what you want. (*****)
Gary Gordon: Building Engaged Schools: Getting the Most Out of America's Classrooms
Great Book! See my review at Amazon.com. (*****)
Kim S. Cameron, Marc Lavine : Making the Impossible Possible: Leading Extraordinary Performance: The Rocky Flats Story
Outstanding book in the field of Positive Organizational Studies. The authors report on research into how Rocky Flats Nuclear Plant was cleaned up 60 years ahead of schedule, $30 billion under budget, and to standards 10 times more stringent than originally set! (*****)
Carol Dweck: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Absolutely a must-read. What's really interesting about Dr. Dweck's work is how inuitive it is. The growth mindset seems almost trite and sugary until the layers upon layers of real effects in academics and athletics and couples and corporations start to pile up. Then, reading the science behind it (which is NOT presented in depth in this book) one starts to realize the power of this construct, and part of that power comes from how easy it is to grasp. (*****)
Stephen C. Lundin: Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results
Good book. Short and written as a story, but the principles make sense and will work. But, they'll challenge the leadership skills of many managers. (****)
John Tabak: Probability And Statistics: The Science Of Uncertainty (History of Mathematics)
I'm starting to improve my capabilities in statistics and thought this would help me put some of it in context. It is NOT a statistics text -- it is a history of probability and statistics, and VERY well done. I don't know if it will help me improve my statistics skills, but I really enjoyed it. (****)
The Arbinger Institute: Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box
Also very good. Not much in the way of citations and they want to sell you follow-on products, but the story format is powerfully communicative. (*****)
Robert E. Quinn: Building the Bridge As You Walk On It : A Guide for Leading Change
Good. Really good. Really, really good. Buy it. Read it. Think about it. It's worth your time and money. (*****)
Jane E. Dutton: Energize Your Workplace: How to Create and Sustain High-Quality Connections at Work
Several chapters in this book were assigned for my Positive Psychology and Organizational Leadership class this semester, but it was so good, and I was so interested, I read it all. Very readable, but with very useful references to research for those who are interested. Jane Dutton is coming to speak to our class and I'm looking forward to it! (*****)
Barry Schwartz: The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
Took me a while to catch on to this one, but, once I did, the points made a lot of sense. "Satisficing" is a concept worth understanding! (*****)
Howard S. Becker: Writing for Social Scientists : How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)
Hey! I finished a book! (Too many articles and chapters in my reading right now to say this very often.) This work is especially good in dealing with the issues, both real and less real, of scholars. Is stilted language necessary to get published? Who can you trust for honest but caring feedback? Are you going to work in a "get it out the door" or "masterwork" mode? How can these questions impede your ability to get something written, much lesss written well? Dr. Becker also pays a great deal of attention to good writing, and the book can help here, though, as he notes, it's not a replacement for the classics in this field.
George E. Vaillant: Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development
Second book read for MAPP. Amazing. Simply Amazing. Dr. Vaillant not only provides insights from decades of studies following three different cohorts from adolesence through old age, he writes beautifully. Even poetically. And so do the subjects of the studies in many of the quotations that appear from them in this book. This book is not only informative, it is a great read. Story after story drawn from the lives of real people. Most inspiring. A few testifying to the possibility of wasting this life. Strongly recommended. (*****)
Martin E. Seligman: What You Can Change and What You Can't : The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement Learning to Accept Who You Are (Fawcett Book)
First book read for MAPP program. (c) 1993 -- This is a broad review of the evidence (and a proposed theory) for the possibility of changing the things we often want to change in our lives, from being fat to alcoholism to anxiety or depression or phobias to sexual performance, orientation, or identity. Dr. Seligman covers the evidence of research and provides expert interpretation and inferences. Would be nice to have an update since the book is now more than a decade old, but that's asking a lot of a full-time researcher and teacher. He describes the book as sort of a Consumer Reports on these areas, but it would take something like that organization to provide continual updates. (*****)
Steven Johnson: Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter
Good enough I wrote a book note with the same title as the book. Worth reading. The book, and maybe even my book note! (*****)
Joseph Jaworski: Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership
I thought this was pretty new-ageish (Jonathan Livingston Seagull was influential at one point in Mr. Jaworski's life), but it ends up much more legitmately spiritual and God-centered. It's a book about leadership, stepping out in faith (to use the jargon I grew up with), and one man's story in a very interesting context, beginning with Watergate and ending with Auschwitz. And that time sequence is very appropriate. (****)
Howard Gardner: Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People's Minds
I admit to pre-judging Howard Gardner without reading him. I've felt the education community's adoption of his unprove theory of "multiple intelligences" has been a mistake. I read this book as a first effort at trying to understand his influence. Some interesting frameworks, but way too little in the way of reference to research. Ironically, "research" is one of his "seven levers" for changing minds. (***)
William W. Lewis: The Power of Productivity: Wealth, Poverty, and the Threat to Global Stability
A thought-provoking report on more than a decade of research into the conditions that help and hinder the creation of wealth in rich and poor countries. It's not luck that makes America wealthy, it's good policy.
David Perkins: King Arthur's Round Table : How Collaborative Conversations Create Smart Organizations
Currently reading. Book note soon.