Hidden Lessons


Book Description

You're in at 7am, there until 7pm and marking into the late hours. You've got one student who's a full time carer, another who's pregnant, and a third who's just joined a gang. You haven't got enough textbooks to go around, and one of the parents just called you an 'extremist'. You've just gone through a devastating heartbreak and you have to teach Romeo and Juliet to 30 hormonal 14 year olds. Welcome to life as a teacher. This is a world that all of us know, but most of us have completely forgotten. It's a world where you're working 50 hour weeks, but you're still just a part-time teacher because the rest of the time you're a security guard, a nurse, a counsellor, or a friend. It's also a world where you spend all day with some of the most interesting people you know. And even when the lesson plan has been abandoned, you're still learning. Mehreen started teaching at 21, and by the time she left 10 years later she'd learnt a bit about teenagers and a lot about life. This is her story.




Japanese Manufacturing Techniques


Book Description

Japanese productivity and quality standards have fired the imagination of American managers, but until now there has been little explanation of how to do it -- how to apply Japanese methods at the actual operating level of U.S. manufacturing plants. This book shows you how, exposing otherwise well-informed westernized readers to a new world of management ideas. Author Richard J. Schonberger demonstrates that the Japanese formula for success is based on a number of specific, interrelated techniques -- stunning in their simplicity -- and he shows how these techniques can be put to work in American industries today. Here, in a clear, handbook format, are nine "lessons" for American manufacturers, introducing scores of techniques aimed at simplifying the overly-complex purchasing, inventory, assembly-fine, and quality-control processes of U.S. firms. At the heart of Japanese manufacturing success are two overlapping strategies: "just-in-time" production and "total quality control." Some American manufacturers already know a little about these methods, but Richard Schonberger provides the most comprehensive description of these techniques available: how they developed, how they all fit together, why they are so potent, and how they "snowball" -- unleashing a powerful chain reaction of productivity and quality control improvements each time more simplification is introduced. -- Publisher description.




Huck Finn's "hidden" Lessons


Book Description

Huck Finn's 'Hidden' Lessons questions the educational suitability of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' in the classroom. The author argues that the book teaches misguided lessons about race relations. Huck Finn's 'Hidden' Lessons challenges the more typical understanding of Huck Finn and guides readers through an analysis that demonstrates how racism functions in the book and the classroom.




Lessons from History


Book Description

History is full to the brim with untold tales of heroics and villainy, gruesome battles, hilarious happenings and downright bizarre coincidences. Meet the war veteran who lost an eye and amputated his own fingers. Discover the original Die Hards, whose bravery would put even Bruce Willis to shame. Just who stole the still-missing Irish crown jewels and how did Adeline, Countess of Cardigan, scandalise society so completely? In Lessons from History, Alex Deane takes us on an uproarious romp through the tales you didn't hear at school. With stories ranging from the little-known characters who played their vital parts in the world's most famous wars to the remarkable adventures of figures across the centuries, to events so extraordinary as to be almost – almost – unbelievable, this book proves that fact is almost always wilder than fiction. Bringing these stories joyfully and often poignantly back to life, Deane finally shines a light on the tales lost to history, and on what we might learn from them today.




Albrecht's Hidden Lessons


Book Description

This carefully organized collection of essays explores the complexity of soil and soil fertility, examining elements such as mycorrhiza, calcium, magnesium, and organic matter in soil composition. In doing so, Albrecht also reveals the intimate connection between soil, crops, animals, and human health. Soil fertility is the foundation of responsible agriculture.




Dumbing Us Down


Book Description

With over 70,000 copies of the first edition in print, this radical treatise on public education has been a New Society Publishers’ bestseller for 10 years! Thirty years in New York City’s public schools led John Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory schooling does little but teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine. This second edition describes the wide-spread impact of the book and Gatto’s "guerrilla teaching." John Gatto has been a teacher for 30 years and is a recipient of the New York State Teacher of the Year award. His other titles include A Different Kind of Teacher (Berkeley Hills Books, 2001) and The Underground History of American Education (Oxford Village Press, 2000).




Pioneers, Hidden Champions, Changemakers, and Underdogs


Book Description

An insider's view of China's under-the-radar, globally competitive innovators. Chinese innovators are making their mark globally. Not only do such giants as Alibaba and Huawei continue to thrive and grow through innovation, thousands of younger Chinese entrepreneurs are poised to enter the global marketplace. In this book, Mark Greeven, George Yip, and Wei Wei offer an insider's view of China's under-the-radar, globally competitive innovators. The authors, all experts on Chinese innovation, distinguish four types of innovators in China: pioneers, large companies that are globally known; hidden champions, midsize enterprises that are market leaders in their niches; underdogs, technology-driven ventures with significant intellectual property; and changemakers, newer firms characterized by digital disruption, exponential growth, and cross-industry innovations. They investigate what kinds of innovations these companies develop (product, process, or business model), their competitive strategies, and key drivers of innovation. They identify six typical ways Chinese entrepreneurs innovate, including swarm innovation (collectively pursuing opportunities) and rapid centralized decision making. Finally, they look at how Chinese innovators are going global, whether building R&D networks internationally or exporting disruptive business models. The book includes many examples of Chinese innovators and innovations, drawn from a range of companies—from pioneers to changemakers—including Alibaba, Haier, Hikvision, Malong Technology, Weihua Solar, Mobike, and Cheetah Mobile. Greeven, Yip, and Wei offer an essential guide to what makes China a heavyweight competitor in the global marketplace.




Hidden Lessons from History


Book Description

Escape, travel the world and explore history's contradictions. In the quest to shape a favorable narrative of the past, we sometimes disregard important context, details, and facts. As is often the case, our picture of history can sometimes be blurred by half-truths--part myth, and part reality. In Hidden Lessons from History , author Peter K. Chronis brings to life a unique collection of well-researched narratives complemented by more than 50 beautiful photographs. Join the author as he explores some very famous historical contradictions and to honors those who made contributions lost by time. Hidden Lessons from History rediscovers everyday heroes, notable villains, and debunks tall historical tales masquerading as fact.




Off the Charts


Book Description

Ann Hulbert’s in-depth exploration of the lives of sixteen extraordinary children over the course of the past century casts new light on America’s current obsession with early achievement. The figures she profiles include math genius Norbert Wiener, founder of cybernetics; two girls whose fiction and poetry stirred debate in the 1920s; the movie superstar Shirley Temple; the African-American pianist and composer Philippa Schuyler; the chess champion Bobby Fischer; computer pioneers and “prodigious savants” with autism; and musical prodigies, present and past. Hulbert probes the changing roles of parents and teachers as well as of psychologists and a curious press. Above all, she delves into the feelings of the prodigies themselves, whose stories so intriguingly raise hopes about untapped human potential and questions about how best to nurture it.