Research and evidence

A leading expert in childhood development makes the case for why self-directed learning - "unschooling" - is the best way to get kids to learn. In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that in order to foster children who will thrive in today's constantly changing world, we must entrust them to steer their own learning and development.

Drawing on evidence from anthropology, psychology, and history, he demonstrates that free play is the primary means by which children learn to control their lives, solve problems, get along with peers, and become emotionally resilient. A brave, counterintuitive proposal for freeing our children from the shackles of the curiosity-killing institution we call school, Free to Learn suggests that it's time to stop asking what's wrong with our children, and start asking what's wrong with the system. It shows how we can act - both as parents and as members of society - to improve children's lives and to promote their happiness and learning.

From Teaching to Thinking offers a passionate and thought-provoking alternative to standardized, scripted curriculum, giving educators support and encouragement to reimagine the beauty and wonder of what education could be.Naturally, children are eager for connective relationships, they are curious, they are thinkers. This foundational text is a pedagogical companion for educators that strengthens their own development as thinkers, researchers, innovators, and constructors of knowledge so that they can pass on this way of being to the children in their care.

Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly. How did this happen?

First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: What doesn't kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being and ancient wisdom from many cultures. Embracing these untruths interferes with young people's social, emotional, and intellectual development. It makes it harder for them to become autonomous adults who are able to navigate the bumpy road of life.

Journalist and screen/life balance expert Catherine Price argues persuasively that our always-on, tech-addicted lifestyles have led us to obsess over intangible concepts such as happiness while obscuring the fact that real happiness lies in the everyday experience of fun. We often think of fun as indulgent, even immature and selfish. We claim to not have time for it, even as we find hours a day for what Price calls Fake Fun - bingeing on television, doomscrolling the news, or posting photos to social media, all in hopes of filling some of the emptiness we feel inside.

Price makes the case that True Fun - which she defines as the magical confluence of playfulness, connection, and flow - will give us the fulfillment we so desperately seek. If you use True Fun as your compass, you will be happier and healthier. You will be more productive, less resentful, and less stressed. You will have more energy. You will find community and a sense of purpose. You will stop languishing and start flourishing. And best of all? You'll enjoy the process.

Casper ter Kuile, a Harvard Divinity School fellow and cohost of the popular Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast, explores how we can nourish our souls by transforming common, everyday practices - yoga, reading, walking the dog - into sacred rituals that can heal our crisis of social isolation and struggle to find purpose - a message we need more than ever for our spiritual and emotional well-being in the age of COVID-19.

We are in crisis today. Our modern technological society has left too many of us - no matter our ages - feeling isolated and bereft of purpose. Previous frameworks for building community and finding meaning no longer support us. Yet ter Kuile reveals a hopeful new message: we might not be religious, but that doesn’t mean we are any less spiritual. 

A soulful re-envisioning of what work and leadership can be, from the visionary mind of renowned author and thought leader, Seth Godin. The Song of Significance is a rousing contemplation on work: why it is the way it is, why it's gotten so bad, what all of us-especially leaders-can do to make it better.

Economic instability and the rise of remote work have left us disconnected and disengaged. Alarmed managers are responding with harsh top-down edicts, layoffs, surveillance and mandatory meetings. Workers are responding by quiet quitting and working their wage. But it doesn't have to be this way. Through 144 provocative stanzas, legendary business author Seth Godin gets to the heart of what ails us; he shows what's really at the root of these trends, and challenges us to do better in ways that matter.

No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you're not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat 25,000 times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.

Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren't found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe.

An inspiring book on how we can change our education system. In Creative Schools, Ken Robinson sets out his practical vision for how education can be transformed to enable all young people to flourish and succeed in the 21st century.

Written with Robinson's trademark wit and engaging style, and filled with practical examples, anecdotes and ground-breaking research, Creative Schools highlights the people and projects that are already revolutionizing education through innovative approaches to teaching, learning and school culture.

A new edition of the bestselling, agenda-setting study of motivation from the international internationally bestselling author of To Sell is Human and When. A book that will change how you think and transform how you live.

Forget everything you thought you knew about how to motivate people - at work, at school, at home. It is wrong. As Daniel H. Pink explains in his paradigm-shattering book Drive, the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today's world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and the world.

Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

How lessons from kindergarten can help-aeveryone develop the creative thinking skills needed to thrive in today's society. In kindergartens these days, children spend more time with math worksheets and phonics flashcards than building blocks and finger paint. Kindergarten is becoming more like the rest of school.

In Lifelong Kindergarten, learning expert Mitchel Resnick argues for exactly the opposite: the rest of school (even the rest of life) should be more like kindergarten. To thrive in today's fast-changing world, people of all ages must learn to think and act creatively - and the best way to do that is by focusing more on imagining, creating, playing, sharing, and reflecting, just as children do in traditional kindergartens. 

School discipline is broken. Too often, the kids who need our help the most are viewed as disrespectful, out of control, and beyond help, and are often the recipients of our most ineffective, most punitive interventions. These students and their parents, teachers, and administrators are frustrated and desperate for answers.

Dr. Ross W. Greene, author of the acclaimed book The Explosive Child, offers educators and parents a different framework for understanding challenging behavior. Dr. Greene's Collaborative Proactive Solutions (CPS) approach helps adults focus on the true factors contributing to challenging classroom behaviors, empowering educators to address these factors and create helping relationships with their most at-risk kids.

After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this brilliant book, she shows how success in school, work, sports, the arts, and almost every area of human endeavor can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities.

People with a fixed mindset - those who believe that abilities are fixed - are less likely to flourish than those with a growth mindset - those who believe that abilities can be developed. Mindset reveals how great parents, teachers, managers, and athletes can put this idea to use to foster outstanding accomplishment.

After surviving a difficult heartbreak and battle with cancer, acclaimed author and columnist Julia Baird began thinking deeply about how we, as people, persevere through the most challenging circumstances. She started to wonder, when we are overwhelmed by illness, loss or pain, or a tragedy outside our control: How can we keep putting one foot in front of the other? 

Baird went in search of the magic that fuels the light within-our own phosphorescence. In this stunning book, she reflects on the things that lit her way through the darkness, especially the surprising strength found in connecting with nature and not just experiencing awe and wonder about the world around her, but deliberately hunting it, daily.

A groundbreaking book on the science of play, and its essential role in fuelling our intelligence and happiness throughout our lives. By definition, play is purposeless and all-consuming. And, most important, it's fun.

Play explains why play is essential to our social skills, adaptability, intelligence, creativity, ability to problem-solve, and more. Play is hardwired into our brains — it is the mechanism by which we become resilient, smart, and adaptable people.

The old adage is ingrained in us that if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all. While this advice may work for home life, as Kim Scott has seen first hand, it is a disaster when adopted by managers in the work place.

Scott earned her stripes as a highly successful manager at Google before moving to Apple where she developed a class on optimal management. Radical Candor draws directly on her experiences at these cutting edge companies to reveal a new approach to effective management that delivers huge success by inspiring teams to work better together by embracing fierce conversations.

What it really means to "read closely." What could Fern Arable, Jay Gatsby, and Winston Churchill possibly have in common? They all need masterful teachers to help students revel in their complexity. And Nancy Frey and Doug Fisher are just the two mentors to help you make that happen.

Call it close reading, call it deep reading, call it analytic reading-call it what you like. The point is, it's a level of understanding that students of any age can achieve with the right kind of instruction. In Rigorous Reading, Frey and Fisher articulate an instructional plan so clearly, and so squarely built on research, that teachers, schools, and districts need look no further.

What happens when global systems are viewed from an Indigenous perspective? How does it affect the way we see history, money, power and learning? Could it change the world? This remarkable book is about everything from echidnas to evolution, cosmology to cooking, science and spirits to Schrodinger's cat.

Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from an Indigenous perspective. He asks how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently? Sand Talk provides a template for living. It's about how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It's about how we learn and how we remember. It's about talking to everybody and listening carefully. It's about finding different ways to look at things.

This book describes how we can do our good work with dedication, energy, discipline, and joy by consciously choosing a new role for ourselves, that of warriors for the human spirit.

This book contains maps of how we ended up in a world nobody wants-overtaken by greed, self-interest, and oppressive power-the very opposite of what we worked so hard to create. These maps look deeply into the darkness of this time so that we can develop the insight we need to contribute in meaningful ways.

When asked to talk to students at Broome Community College in upstate New York in the spring of 2011, Austin Kleon wrote a simple list of ten things he wished he'd heard when he was their age: Steal like an artist. Don't wait until you know who you are to start making things. Write the book you want to read. Use your hands. Side projects are important. Do good work and put it where people can see it. Geography is no longer our master. Be nice (the world is a small town.). Be boring (it's the only way to get work done.). Creativity is subtraction. After giving the speech, he posted the text and slides to his popular blog, where it quickly went viral.

Now Kleon has expanded his original manifesto into an illustrated guide to the creative life for writers, artists, entrepreneurs, designers, photographers, musicians, and anyone attempting to make things-art, a career, a life-in the digital age. Brief, direct, and visually interactive, the book includes illustrative anecdotes and mini-exercise sections calling out practical actions readers can take to unleash their own creative spirits.

Why have we lost our ability to focus? What are the causes? And, most importantly, how do we get it back?

For Stolen Focus, internationally bestselling author Johann Hari went on a three-year journey to uncover the reasons why our teenagers now focus on one task for only 65 seconds, and why office workers on average manage only three minutes. He interviewed the leading experts in the world on attention, and learned that everything we think about this subject is wrong.

'The Element' is the point at which natural talent meets personal passion. In this groundbreaking book, world-renowned creativity expert Ken Robinson considers the child bored in class, the disillusioned employee and those of us who feel frustrated but can't quite explain why - and shows how we all need to reach our Element.

Through the stories of people like Vidal Sassoon, Arianna Huffington and Matt Groening, who have recognized their unique talents and made a successful living doing what they love, Robinson explains how every one of us can find ourselves in our Element, and achieve everything we're capable of. With a wry sense of humour, Ken Robinson shows the urgent need to enhance creativity and innovation by thinking differently about ourselves. Above all, he inspires us to reconnect with our true self - it could just change everything.

What’s an explosive child? A child who responds to routine problems with extreme frustration crying, screaming, swearing, kicking, hitting, biting, spitting, destroying property, and worse. A child whose frequent, severe outbursts leave his or her parents feeling frustrated, scared, worried, and desperate for help. Most of these parents have tried everything-reasoning, explaining, punishing, sticker charts, therapy, medication but to no avail. They can’t figure out why their child acts the way he or she does; they wonder why the strategies that work for other kids don’t work for theirs; and they don’t know what to do instead.

Dr. Ross Greene, a distinguished clinician and pioneer in the treatment of kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, has worked with thousands of explosive children, and he has good news: these kids aren’t attention-seeking, manipulative, or unmotivated, and their parents aren’t passive, permissive pushovers. Rather, explosive kids are lacking some crucial skills in the domains of flexibility/adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving, and they require a different approach to parenting.

It's time for the educational slugfest to stop. 'Traditional' and 'Progressive' education are both caricatures, and bashing cartoon images of each other is unprofitable and unedifying. The search for a new model of education - one that is genuinely empowering for all young people - is serious and necessary. Some good progress has already been made, but teachers and school leaders are being held back by specious beliefs, false oppositions and the limited thinking of orthodoxy.

Drawing on recent experience in England, North America and Australasia, but applicable round the world, The Future of Teaching clears away this logjam of bad science and slack thinking and frees up the stream of much needed innovation. This timely book aims to banish arguments based on false claims about the brain and poor understanding of cognitive science, reclaim the nuanced middle ground of teaching that develops both rigorous knowledge and 'character', and lay the foundations for a 21st century education worthy of the name.

How can we create learning environments that cultivate curiosity and grow young people as confident, capable and creative inquirers? How can we ensure that our teaching nurtures rather than diminishes the sense of wonder with which we are all born? How can we become better inquirers as we teach? How can we help our students grow as thinkers, collaborators, self-managers, communicators and researchers as they inquire?

The Power of Inquiry is an inspiring and comprehensive guide to the implementation of quality inquiry practices in the contemporary classroom. Organised around ten essential questions, each chapter provides both a theoretical and practical overview of the elements that combine to create learning environments rich in purpose and passion.

Transforming Schools demonstrates how transformation is no longer an option in teaching and learning - it has become a necessity. Changes in the way we work and the challenges of issues such as climate change, poverty and migration mean that teaching and learning need to alter to incorporate capacities that will help us meet those challenges.

The 4Cs - Creativity, Critical Reflection, Communication and Collaboration - have long been present in education, but Transforming Schools demonstrates how schools can change teaching and leadership to embed and enact the 4Cs to make them central to dynamic and exciting learning.

We strive so mightily to be good: good partners, daughters, mothers, employees, and friends. We hope all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed, and underwhelmed. We look at our lives and wonder: Wasn't it all supposed to be more beautiful than this? We quickly silence that question, telling ourselves to be grateful, hiding our discontent-even from ourselves.

For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her own discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her mind: There She Is. At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high. But she soon realized they had come to her from within. This was her own voice - the one she had buried beneath decades of cultural conditioning and institutional allegiances. This was the voice of the girl she had been before the world told her who to be. Glennon decided to quit abandoning herself and to instead abandon the world's expectations of her. She quit being good so she could be free. She quit pleasing and started living.

What if someone slipped you a piece of paper listing the literacy practices that ensure students demonstrate more than a year’s worth of learning for a year spent in school? Would you keep the paper or throw it away?

These practices are “visible” for teachers and students to see, because their purpose has been made clear, they are implemented at the right moment in a student’s learning, and their effect is tangible. Yes, the “aha” moments made visible by design.

Rich tasks, collaborative work, number talks, problem-based learning, direct instruction…with so many possible approaches, how do we know which ones work the best? In Visible Learning for Mathematics, six acclaimed educators assert it’s not about which one it’s about when and show you how to design high-impact instruction so all students demonstrate more than a year’s worth of mathematics learning for a year spent in school.

That’s a high bar, but with the amazing K-12 framework here, you choose the right approach at the right time, depending upon where learners are within three phases of learning: surface, deep, and transfer. This results in“visible” learning because the effect is tangible. The framework is forged out of current research in mathematics combined with John Hattie’s synthesis of more than 15 years of education research involving 300 million students.