Learn Yourself: A Manual for the Mind - Companion Book
Contents:
As for the actual note taking, we tend to use either quadrille pads or Moleskine squared notebooks. It goes heavily into the research that helps guide our understanding of how human beings learn. Hardcover not e-book copy is recommended. Nothing could be further from the truth—this is a very deep and useful book for any serious educator.
Early on, the book describes how to find and evaluate good research. Sure, some of the guidance seems straightforward, but when put all together, this book provides a great set of principles that will help instructors from any discipline better understand, and reach, their students. We unfailingly recommend Khan Academy , not only for math, but for pretty much anything. You may not be aware that Sal has written a fantastic book about his experiences in starting Khan Academy and his vision for education: The One World Schoolhouse: Or our LHTL videos that show the instructors?
Feel free to comment in the discussion forum here. Her observations involve seven widely held beliefs that are harming students: Although this book was written for UK audiences, its findings are perfectly translatable to what is going on in the US. We recently had the opportunity to have breakfast with Peter Brown, the first author of the redoubtable Make It Stick: So we took the opportunity to reread the book before our meeting.
A Spanish version is also available: La ciencia del aprendizaje exitoso. Barb had the chance to read this superlative book pre-press, and she has a beautiful hard copy beside her as she writes this. The deep learning revolution has brought us driverless cars, the greatly improved Google Translate, fluent conversations with Siri and Alexa, and enormous profits from automated trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Deep learning networks can play poker better than professional poker players and defeat a world champion at Go. In this book, Terry Sejnowski explains how deep learning went from being an arcane academic field to a disruptive technology in the information economy. How to Be an Effective Teacher. This self-published book has sold over four million copies in the decades it has been in print, perhaps making it one of the most successful self-published books ever.
We found the practice of placing entire bibliographic references into the middle of sentences, instead of just referring to them in an endnote, to be pretty clumsy—it was clear this is a self-published book. But even so, there was a lot of great advice. Yet, as Christensen and Eyring show, deliberate and judicious choices to not emulate Harvard can result in tremendous cost-savings for students.
The Great Gatsby , by F. Nick, the narrator, is an honest guide to how love led his friend Jay Gatsby to the boundless, tragic pursuit of money. This book is a beautifully written reflection on life, idealism, and ambition, all framed in the excesses of the Roaring Twenties. Many of you have already realized that is the approach we took with the creation of Learning How to Learn.
This is an inspiring book about how to improve both yourself and the lives of others. Plus, who knew that Franklin almost made a living as a swimming instructor? We have a habit of reading books about rebellious, contrarian sorts of people. A pioneering work in education. Barb was lucky enough to speak with Saundra about her book a few days ago—Saundra herself is a force to be reckoned with in helping reshape attitudes towards student learning. This is the epic tale of how Jan Baalsrud, a Norwegian commando, overcame virtually every hardship that could be thrown at a human being as he fought, skied, limped, dragged, was carried, was entombed, and yet still carried on.
This book will inspire you to carry on with aplomb—it is unforgettable! News and World Report has called Arizona State University, which Crow helms, the 1 university for innovation in the country. Sadly, the main points of the book are buried beneath clunky prose.
My 3 Best Art Instruction Books
The University We Need: Suggestions such as the creation of a national National Academic Honesty Board overlook the fact that state boards designed to ferret out cheating in state schools never actually seem to do so. See the discussion in the far better book Freakonomics for why this occurs. Fascinating insights into the differences between US and German parenting cultures.
Lipska the neuroscientist of the title and Elaine McArdle. This is a wondrously eye-opening account of what it feels like to go mad, or to be like one of those mean, nasty, self-centered, semi-crazy types who you sometimes run into if you work in customer service. Good insight into the brain even as we readers receive wonderful insight into the frailty and wonder of human consciousness. This week we read The Magic of Impromptu Speaking: Along with useful insights, Andrii provides wonderful stories about speaking, including his own growth from shy youth to outgoing public speaker.
A useful primer to help you gain more comfort in speaking publicly, and an easy, nice read. An earlier book we also enjoyed several years ago was Maphead: A thought-provoking and interesting read. This was such a riveting book that we finished it all in one evening. The upshot is this whopping cautionary tale featuring world-class frauds and utterly ruthless, no-bounds-of-human-decency litigators.
John Carreyrou and the Wall Street Journal deserve kudos for this edge-of-the-seat investigative reporting. Also a great book for audio. A guide to help someone you love , by Paul Wallis. But who would have ever thought that a book on macular degeneration could be both entertaining and enlightening? A guide to help someone you love is a delightful, informative, and upbeat book about a condition that most know little about. Chapters 1 through 9 in particular give a nice overview of the topic. If you want a more up-to-date perspective on modern-day social structures in China, this book will give you a broad perspective.
While in China we were also recommended another related biography— Wu: The Chinese Empress who schemed, seduced and murdered her way to become a living God , a living God is, after all, a nice gig if you can get it. This revisionist biography lends a sympathetic eye to Empress Dowager Cixi — , who is considered by many to be the most important woman in Chinese history.
If you want to catch a sense of the conditions that led to modern China, this intriguing book will keep you captivated—great biographies are one of the easiest ways to learn about history. Incidentally, Empress Dowager Cixi is a nice book for audio. Jung Chang is also the author of the spectacular international best-seller Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China , with over ten million copies sold worldwide. Yes, Jung Chang can write! We LOVE this best-selling book, which has been optioned for translation into 19 different languages!
The Soul of an Octopus: She also read the Audible version of her book. This National Book Award Finalist caught our attention because we had no idea that octopuses are so smart and so filled with personality. Montgomery is an infectiously enthusiastic writer who could get you excited about anything.
The book also gives great insight into the behind-the-scenes work needed to run a world-class aquarium, and the magic of diving on coral reefs in search of wild octopuses. Have you always wondered how an utterly alien intelligence might think? This insightful book was co-authored by some of the most influential researchers around. The book jacket says it best: Underlining and highlighting, rereading, cramming, and single-minded repetition of new skills create the illusion of mastery, but gains fade quickly.
More complex and durable learning come from self-testing, introducing certain difficulties in practice, waiting to re-study new material until a little forgetting has set in, and interleaving the practice of one skill or topic with another. Speaking most urgently to students, teachers, trainers, and athletes, Make It Stick will appeal to all those interested in the challenge of lifelong learning and self-improvement. He offers great insight into how and why you can broaden your network, and how important it is to open your mind to those who are different from you, in background, training, outlook, or ideology.
A nice book also for audio listening.
How these books were chosen
Rimbeaux, which comes complete with three bean bags for juggling. So recently, Barb picked up another copy of Juggling for the Complete Klutz and its accompanying bean bags and began to renew her juggling skills. The Courage to Grow: An honest, forthright, deeply thought-provoking book about what an education could and should be. Audio version read by Laura Sandefer herself. The Price of Privilege: Our tendency is to focus on obviously disadvantaged kids coming from poor families. That can be a mistake, says author and practicing psychologist Madeline Levine, who works in affluent Marin County, California.
Consumerism and focus on achievement can produce depressed, anxious, angry and bored teenagers who suffer from high rates of drug use, eating disorders, and suicide. Sometimes, in fact, the seeming poor can have far wealthier internal lives. Levine offers great suggestions for the advantaged to help them avoid common parenting pitfalls involving intrusiveness and autonomy.
The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction , which is geared towards non-fiction. King has sailed through it all—including his near lethal run-in with an out-of-control car. Renie was a smart, independent career woman. When she retired, to her surprise, found herself unable to afford to live independently. As it turns out, putting away a little each month beginning relatively early in your career can make enormous improvements in your life, and the lives of your family members, as you grow older.
- Internetnost;
- The Friendly Beasts.
- Freefall.
- .
- You Cant Take it With You.
John Schwartz tells you how to get your financial life in order, no matter what your age. If you want to do the best you can long term for yourself and those you love, you owe it to yourself to read this excellent book. Also nice on audio. Life and Work is a masterpiece of insight, not only on how to achieve your goals, whatever those goals might be , but on how you can build an organization that is structured for success. Now, forty years later, Bridgewater has made more money for its clients than any other hedge fund in history, and grown into the fifth most important private company in the United States.
The mind is a jungle. And, like any jungle, this one requires a field guide for survival. Paired with the original 'Learn Yourself: A Manual for the. And, like any jungle, this one requires a field guide for survival. Paired with the original 'Learn Yourself: A Manual for the Mind,' this companion book offers the.
This means, at least in part, being aware of your internal signals of annoyance, anger, or irritability—which are all signs of close-mindedness. You can use those internal signals to trigger quality reflections. We have often used radical open-mindedness even in our research—for example, we send advance versions of our research papers to people we know will dislike our work.
Learn Yourself: A Manual for the Mind - Companion Book
It is a deep book of productivity that gets at the essentials of your life. From Zero to One: Even if you have no interest in business, the book is worthwhile for its insights into contrarianism and creativity. Confessions of a Media Manipulator , which we admit we really liked. We want to bring up one of our favorite books: Barb has used this book for years to teach basic ideas of engineering to ordinary non-engineering types.
Making Physics Out of the Ordinary. Bloomfield would have no memory of it now, about a decade ago, Barb was able to visit and tour his fantastic physics demonstrations at the University of Virginia. These puppies are amongst the most effective sound protectors available. A great strength of this book was its broad coverage of prodigies of all sorts—from computer programming savants like Bill Gates to dance and acting prodigy Shirley Temple.
Some parents with extraordinary IQs, for example, have pushed their children in bizarre ways—with often disastrous results. Other parents have wholeheartedly devoted their lives to the children they wished to make into prodigies, only to find little solace in the long run. Somehow through all this, the book provides healthy encouragement for ordinary, non-savant types. There was a disconcerting tendency through the book to switch between prodigies even mid-paragraph, but otherwise, highly recommended! Sarah Levitt has written a book to help leaders better understand how other leaders wend their way through the difficult, sometimes lonely path of great leadership: A Book for Magnificent Leadership: Through interviewing successful leaders, Sarah has laid out guidelines that others can find useful.
Sousa, now in its fifth edition , which was recommended to us as a top neuroscience-based book on learning. There are so many books to help teachers understand how younger students learn. But you may be surprised to learn that there are virtually no books for those students themselves, or for their parents. The funny but deeply informative pictures alone are worth the price of the book. We make it a practice to ask people about their all-time favorite book. A Memoir , by Jeannette Walls.
So we finally broke down and read it. This book, incidentally, has been on the New York Times best-seller list for weeks, and has over 7, Amazon reviews with a 4. Many thanks to you. I am very interesting to know the most important books and you now help very much. I am study draw at home and I follow it is possible this books!
It was the exercises from that book that really helped me to look closely at color and see how colors effect each other. You also get exercises to do from the book. Thanks for doing this, and hopefully saving us all some time and money. I know that you have previously mentioned it somewhere on your website — or maybe in the recent webinar?? Both of those authors cite Nicolaides as the teacher who first introduced contour drawing.
He offers great insight into how and why you can broaden your network, and how important it is to open your mind to those who are different from you, in background, training, outlook, or ideology. But who would have ever thought that a book on macular degeneration could be both entertaining and enlightening? We artists do love to buy books. Franklin, incidentally, is the brother of Learning How to Learn author fave Joshua Foer, who described how he became an unlikely memory champion in Moonwalking with Einstein: Drawing realistic textures in pencil by jd hillberry here is where you learn to take value and tone to the next level. I love all three books that you have listed and certainly learned to think and to see differently and begin-to-understand, differently, because of them. The reader will emerge with a much deeper and nuanced understanding of altruism in reading this book, the best on altruism in the last 15 years.
This book was also the first where I encountered the concept of gesture drawing. I worked with the Nicolaides book for a long time when I was just getting started and it was really helpful. His directions for each exercise that he introduces are great and he has schedules in the book that tell you which exercises to practice and for how long.
He has lots of good insights about the drawing process as well. This book was really important for me as a beginner, and continues to be one that I return to frequently. I remember posting this quote from the book near my drawing area: All the books you advised are outstanding, esp.
Recommendations
Drawing on the Right Side, so long as one takes the time to actually perform the exercises. I was absolutely amazed at my progress with that book. Hello Paul, Good idea this post. About figure drawing, there is this great advanced and detailed book: Thanks for all your work. Thanks to you I have both the Speed and the Dow but have failed you by not working continuously through them. I have found Bridgemans Complete guide to Drawing from Life useful as a source to copy from and to understand anatomy better.
Thought provoking and timely as a reminder that I must return to the Speed and Dow this winter. Thank you for the great explanations of what to expect from each book and for keeping the list narrow. This is an excellent resource. Great post as always. I can only suggest one book for the list. Its a great book for artistic motivation. Oh yes Paul, I have all of them and some.
On my kindle I have all 3 books by Juliette Aristides. They are all very valuable in their own way. I use all of these books at different times. We all have our unique way of learning and to find what is right for us we have to investigate. However, the bottom line is practice…. Love being able to download free books that are over years old.
Dorian just had a webinar on his new course on Mastering light and Form. Here is the link for replay: I am also very familiar with James Gurney, thank you for the link I had missed that one. Thank you for being such an inspiration Paul. Hi there, I am fairly new to your site and am learning and enjoying it tremendously. Your post reminded me how it is time to go through my art books and cull, trade, sell most of them! What you said is all too true. Some of the books were given to me or I bought in the beginning years.
I have all four of the books you listed and have dipped into them over and over again. It has the properties you mentioned in your post. All your posts are so inspiring. This exercise gives immediadte result and is so meditative. Thanks so much for publishing these links, Paul!. I have Googled the Bargue plates and have found some few posted here and there to work from until such time I can afford to buy the actual book.
I, too, have become very selective in choosing whether or not to buy art books. To me, too many of them seem to rehash information I already have in other books. I have had loads of fun with some of the exercises in that book and have recommended both to people as well. These are all worthwhile as well. The two books that taught me how to see and how to develop a logical approach to drawing when the goal is accuracy and relative speed are:. Drawing in the Digital Age: Angle-based methodology based on simple math. New ways to see and draw by Raphael Ellender.
He presents very clearly and precisely his approach to drawing from where you look when drawing a straight line, to perspective and gestural lines in life drawing. Hi Paul, what a terrific blog post! I would like to add here how much I like the Famous Artists 3-Volume set that you often find on Ebay.
Always love posts about books, and this one features two of my favorite ones. Thank you for sharing! Great opportunity to re-read and refresh our knowledge.
Smashwords – Learn Yourself: A Manual for the Mind - Companion Book – a book by Aaron Garrison
While Dow is a great resource, to me it is hampered by low quality scans but even more by the fact that is a rather complicated text. As a pedagogic tool, it really would benefit from being broken down into smaller pieces and having excercises set out more clearly. Loomis books may have their faults, but since I have nothing to compare to and not having the master drawers expert eyes and hindsight knowledge, I really like the Titan reprints.
They make me want to pick up the pen. I bought a copy of the Harold Speed book, but it was such bad print quality that I had to throw it away.
I went back to the pdf I already had, and printed it. Quite a wordy fellow by the way, but at an intermediate level I think it could be useful to me. The Charles Bargue stuff — it is like a bunch of dry oatmeals that I have to eat … it is probably healthy and nutritious, but by Jove… it will kill me. And as Paul has hinted at earlier in his postings, the reproduction of a plate is not without its issues.
What I really need I think, is a mix of Dow and Loomis, for me today. The big challenge is to start out on the journey without falling prey to pessimism because it seems such a long haul to even being halfways good. I own the Bargue book, and totally agree. The should have printed the plates to the correct size, otherwise what is the point.
It contains the very basic concept we tend to forget when starting portait and figure drawing. Great post as always, Paul. Solomon is another precious classic. The Bargue book has been on my to-order list for a while now. You show it at any school and be offered admission. Drawing realistic textures in pencil by jd hillberry here is where you learn to take value and tone to the next level. He teaches you what tools to use to get various effects. I have slowly been getting digital versions of the books I love.
I cant find all of them but I did manage to find quite a few allowing me to free up some space. Its not a perfect system for sure. There are several books that are just better and easier to read in hardback. The Loomis books are a good example. You can get the pdf for free but the formatting is difficult to follow.
The hardbacks flow so much better. I do think beginners should opt for digital books if they can. Just because the collection tends to grow huge as you look for more information. I have always wanted to be able to draw decently. I am obviously not understanding something. If anyone can explain it to me so I can at least get started…. Thank you for this list. I will look into these books. I love drawing and this year established a weekly drawing group. To support the 15 group members I have set up a small library of books for loan. From those books I strongly recommend the following on the basis that they contain well written text, pose numerous challenging exercises, reference the masters of drawing, and include supporting drawing images throughout.