Hello, and welcome to our discussion of chapter four! For those just joining in, we’re reading The Resilience Revolution by Larry K. Brendtro and Scott J. Larson.
This chapter is titled “Nurturing Talent” and, unsurprisingly, it talks about how to best aid troubled youths in finding what they’re good at.
This chapter really struck me as someone who teaches kids with Learning Disabilities. When they first enter our school, my very first goal is to help them enjoy school again. They’ve spent years falling behind and feeling like they aren’t smart enough or good enough, and it’s sometimes difficult for them to see that they are smart and able, they just weren’t in programs that met their needs before.
I think this chapter and the first are the ones that have really hit me and really inspired me to try even harder to reach kids. To feel talentless, like we cannot perform anything correctly, or like our lives have no purpose is one of the first steps into a downward spiral; what’s keeping us from making bad choices and throwing our lives away?
Also discussed here is Howard Gardner’s Nine Types of Intelligences, which is something that I absolutely love and like to discuss with my students when they first come to our specialized school; showing them that we are all “smarter” in different ways and knowing those ways we can find strategies to help us in school. In fact, I think I’d like to discuss these intelligences further in its own post, maybe next week?
Anyway, I would recommend this book to all educators simply for this and chapter one (the rest is good too, but those are the real clinchers for me). If you’re like to purchase the book, here’s the link to Amazon.
katieisateacher.com 