brain development

The Power of the Adolescent Brain:  Strategies for Teaching Middle and High School Students

The Power of the Adolescent Brain: Strategies for Teaching Middle and High School Students

$26.99eBook: $20.49

Moody. Reckless. Impractical. Insecure. Distracted. These are all words commonly used to describe adolescents.  But what if we recast these traits in a positive light?  Teens possess insight, passion, idealism, sensitivity, and creativity in abundance -- all qualities that can make a significant positive contribution to society.

In this thought-provoking book, Thomas Armstrong looks at the power and promise of the teenage brain from an empathetic, strength-based perspective—and describes what middle and high school educators can do to make the most of their students potential.

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The Myth of the ADHD Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child’s Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion

The Myth of the ADHD Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child’s Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion

$18.00eBook: $11.99

A fully revised and updated edition of the groundbreaking book on tackling the root causes of children’s attention and behavior problems rather than masking the symptoms with medication.

More than twenty years after Dr. Thomas Armstrong's Myth of the ADD Child first published, he presents much needed updates and insights in this substantially revised edition. When The Myth of the ADD Child was first published in 1995, Dr. Thomas Armstrong made the controversial argument that many behaviors labeled as ADD or ADHD are simply a child's active response to complex social, emotional, and educational influences. In this fully revised and updated edition, Dr. Armstrong shows readers how to address the underlying causes of a child's attention and behavior problems in order to help their children implement positive changes in their lives.

The rate of ADHD diagnosis has increased sharply, along with the prescription of medications to treat it. Now needed more than ever, this book includes fifty-one new non-drug strategies to help children overcome attention and behavior problems, as well as updates to the original fifty proven strategies.

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Mindfulness in the Classroom:  Strategies for Promoting Concentration, Compassion, and Calm

Mindfulness in the Classroom: Strategies for Promoting Concentration, Compassion, and Calm

$27.95eBook: $15.11

In today's schools, students and teachers feel unprecedented--even alarming--levels of stress.  How can we create calmer classrooms in which students concentrate better and feel more positive about themselves and others?  Author Thomas Armstrong offers a compelling answer in the form of mindfulness, a secular practice he defines as the intentional focus of one's attention on the present moment in a nonjudgmental way.

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The Multiple Intelligences of Reading and Writing:  Making the Words Come Alive

The Multiple Intelligences of Reading and Writing: Making the Words Come Alive

$12.66

Reading instruction (as well as remedial reading) typically uses words, word, and more words.  In this ground-breaking work, based upon Dr. Howard Gardner's famed theory of multiple intelligences, Dr. Thomas Armstrong reveals that some of the most effective learning strategies for teaching reading and writing are actually methods that reach beyond the linguistic (or word) brain and into other non-linguistic areas of the brain, such as the musical brain, the kinesthetic brain, the naturalist brain, the social brain, and the emotional brain.

Dr. Armstrong provides hundreds of examples to illustrate his method.  So, for the musical brain, students learn the music of words by chanting stories.  For the kinesthetic brain, kids create gestures to go with every one of the 45 phonetic sounds of the English language.  For the social brain, students de-construct the implicit social messages of a text (e.g. is this text an advertisement, a political speech, an instructional tool, or a literary effort?).  For the naturalist brain, students look for the ''roots'' of words by engaging in etymological excavation.  For the emotional brain, students learn to read words that express emotion and activity (like SPLAT! POP! BOOM! CLINK! etc.).

As Dr. Armstrong demonstrates, the most effective reading programs are those that combine phonemic awareness with actively reading real books.  But to learn those crucial phonics skills, students need to link phonetic sounds to music, physical experiences, social events, emotional states, logical analysis, and more!  That way, the otherwise ''boring'' teaching will transform into dynamic and exciting lessons that students will always remember.

 

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The Human Odyssey:  Navigating the Twelve Stages of Life

The Human Odyssey: Navigating the Twelve Stages of Life

$17.95eBook: $9.99

Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D., an award-winning educator and expert on human development, offers a cross-cultural view of life's entire journey, from before birth to death to the possibilities of an afterlife. Dr. Armstrong cites both clinical research and anecdotal evidence in a comprehensive view of the challenges and opportunities we face at every stage of our development. His accessible narrative incorporates elements of history, literature, psychology, spirituality, and science in a fascinating guide to understanding our past as well as our future.

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The Best Schools:  How Human Development Research Should Inform Educational Practice

The Best Schools: How Human Development Research Should Inform Educational Practice

$9.83eBook: $22.99

Educators, politicians, parents, and even students are consumed with speaking the language of academic achievement. Yet something is missing in the current focus on accountability, standardized testing, and adequate yearly progress. If schools continue to focus the conversation on rigor and accountability and ignore more human elements of education, many students may miss out on opportunities to discover the richness of individual exploration that schools can foster.

In The Best Schools, Armstrong urges educators to leave narrow definitions of learning behind and return to the great thinkers of the past 100 years—Montessori, Piaget, Freud, Steiner, Erikson, Dewey, Elkind, Gardner—and to the language of human development and the whole child.

The Best Schools highlights examples of educational programs that are honoring students’ differences, using developmentally appropriate practices, and promoting a humane approach to education that includes the following elements:

  • An emphasis on play for early childhood learning.
  • Theme- and project-based learning for elementary school students
  • Active learning that recognizes the social, emotional, and cognitive needs of adolescents in  middle schools.
  • Mentoring, apprenticeships, and cooperative education for high school students

Educators in “the best schools” recognize the differences in the physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual worlds of students of different ages. This book will help educators reflect on how to help each student reach his or her true potential, how to inspire each child and adolescent to discover an inner passion to learn, and how to honor the unique journey of each individual through life.

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