Since Socrates, teaching has been a difficult and even dangerous profession. Why is teaching such hard work? In this provocative, witty, sometimes rueful book, Cohen writes about the predicaments that teachers face and explores what responsible teaching can be. He focuses on the kind of mind reading teaching demands and the resources it requires.

In this spearkling nonfiction debut, Monson uses unexpectedly nonliterary forms - the index, the Harvard outline, the mathematical proof - to delve into an equally surprising mix of obsessions: disc golf, the history of mining in northern Michigan, car washes, snow, topology, and more. He remembers the telegram, a disappearing form, and reflects on his outsider experience at an exclusive Detroit-area boarding school in the form of a criminal history. - from cover

This is the compelling story of an experiment begun in 1961 that eventually affected the lives of almost all of the residents of the island of Martha's Vineyard. The author writes engagingly of the island and its year-round inhabitants, a community of some seven thousand persons of diverse ethnic and social backgrounds. With sympathy and insight Milton Mazer analyzes the stresses that are peculiar to the conditions of life on the island, and he describes the kinds of psychological disorders that are precipitated by those stresses. He reports, without technical jargon, the results of a five-year study of a great variety of psychosocial predicaments experienced by the people of the island. Finally he examines the catalytic effect the mental health center and its research findings have had on the development of other supportive agencies and how the community established a network of human services to meet its needs. The work clearly demonstrates that striking advances can be made by a mental health program that is informed by an understanding of the community served. The book will stand as a model for future studies in this area.

Teaching is a complex and challenging endeavour. Teachers are continually faced with difficult choices in which competing values are set in tension with one another. The interests of all students, and of other groups and constituencies, can rarely be served at the same time. Different educational goals, each desirable in and of itself, often place

The next twenty years will be completely unlike the last twenty years. The world is in economic crisis, and there are no easy fixes to our predicament. Unsustainable trends in the economy, energy, and the environment have finally caught up with us and are converging on a very narrow window of time—the "Twenty-Teens." The Crash Course presents our predicament and illuminates the path ahead, so you can face the coming disruptions and thrive--without fearing the future or retreating into denial. In this book you will find solid facts and grounded reasoning presented in a calm, positive, non-partisan manner. Our money system places impossible demands upon a finite world. Exponentially rising levels of debt, based on assumptions of future economic growth to fund repayment, will shudder to a halt and then reverse. Unfortunately, our financial system does not operate in reverse. The consequences of massive deleveraging will be severe. Oil is essential for economic growth. The reality of dwindling oil supplies is now internationally recognized, yet virtually no developed nations have a Plan B. The economic risks to individuals, companies, and countries are varied and enormous. Best-case, living standards will drop steadily worldwide. Worst-case, systemic financial crises will toss the world into jarring chaos. This book is written for those who are motivated to learn about the root causes of our predicaments, protect themselves and their families, mitigate risks as much as possible, and control what effects they can. With challenge comes opportunity, and The Crash Course offers a positive vision for how to reshape our lives to be more balanced, resilient, and sustainable.

Using the Russian president’s major public addresses as the main source, Bo Petersson analyzes the legitimization strategies employed during Vladimir Putin’s third and fourth terms in office. The argument is that these strategies have rested on Putin’s highly personalized blend of strongman-image projection and presentation as the embodiment of Russia’s great power myth. Putin appears as the only credible guarantor against renewed weakness, political chaos, and interference from abroad—in particular from the US. After a first deep crisis of legitimacy manifested itself by the massive protests in 2011–2012, the annexation of Crimea led to a lengthy boost in Putin’s popularity figures. The book discusses how the Crimea effect is, by 2021, trailing off and Putin’s charismatic authority is increasingly questioned by opposition from Alexei Navalny, the effects of unpopular reforms, and poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, Russia is bound to head for a succession crisis as the legitimacy of the political system continues to be built on Putin’s projected personal characteristics and—now apparently waning—charisma, and since no potential heir apparent has been allowed on center stage. The constitutional reform of summer 2020 made it possible in theory for Putin to continue as president until 2036. Yet, this change did not address the Russian political system’s fundamental future leadership dilemma.

Are our lives meaningful, or meaningless? Is our inevitable death a bad thing? Would immortality be an improvement? Would it be better, all things considered, to hasten our deaths by suicide? Many people ask these big questions -- and some people are plagued by them. Surprisingly, analytic philosophers have said relatively little about these important questions about the meaning of life. When they have tackled the big questions, they have tended, like popular writers, to offer comforting, optimistic answers. The Human Predicament invites readers to take a clear-eyed and unfettered view of the human condition. David Benatar here offers a substantial, but not unmitigated, pessimism about the central questions of human existence. He argues that while our lives can have some meaning, we are ultimately the insignificant beings that we fear we might be. He maintains that the quality of life, although less bad for some than for others, leaves much to be desired in even the best cases. Worse, death is generally not a solution; in fact, it exacerbates rather than mitigates our cosmic meaninglessness. While it can release us from suffering, it imposes another cost - annihilation. This state of affairs has nuanced implications for how we should think about many things, including immortality and suicide, and how we should think about the possibility of deeper meaning in our lives. Ultimately, this thoughtful, provocative, and deeply candid treatment of life's big questions will interest anyone who has contemplated why we are here, and what the answer means for how we should live.

The term 'African Potentials' refers to the knowledge, systems, practices, ideas and values created and implemented in African societies that are expected to contribute to overcoming various challenges and promoting people's wellbeing. This collection of articles, focused on African societies, is based on the idea that 'Africa is People'. In this book, African people are placed at the centre of the discussion. The book's contributors, all of whom believe in African people and their potentials, consider women, minors and young people, people with disabilities, entrepreneurs, herders, farmers, mine workers, refugees, migrants, traditional rulers, militiamen and members of the political elite, and examine their predicaments and potentials in detail. Africa is people, and African potentials can be found only in African people themselves.

A mouthwatering tale of invention. When a persnickety customer named Filbert P. Horsefeathers complains that George CrumÍs fried potatoes are too thick, George makes them thinner. When Filbert insists they are still too thick, George makes them even thinner. But when the plate is sent back a third time, George mischievously decides to use his sharpest knife to cut paper-thin potato slices, which he fries until they are crackling and douses liberally with salt. At last, Filbert is satisfied, proclaiming, ñPerfection!î Which they are. Because, quite by accident, George has invented potato chips! Based on true events, this delicious tale will have kids clamoring for more, more, more!

Predicaments of Knowledge explores the difficult questions South African universities face after apartheid: Is there a difference between Africanising a university and decolonising a university? What about differences between deracialising and decolonising the curricula taught at universities across disciplines? Through a range of reflections on race, language, colonial, postcolonial and decolonial knowledge projects from Africa and Latin America, this book explores the pitfalls and possibilities that face a post-apartheid generation inventing the future of knowledge. The distinctions between Africanisation, decolonisation and deracialisation are often conflated in the political demands put to universities. Suren Pillay emphasises all three as important but distinct imperatives. If an intervention is undertaken with the aim of decolonising the university while actually addressing deracialisation, it can undermine the effort to decolonise. Similarly, if an initiative to Africanise the university does not address decolonisation, both processes can be undermined. Drawing on more than two and a half decades of the author’s participation in these debates, these essays aim to intervene in and elucidate questions and predicaments, rather than offering blue prints; they are dialogical in spirit even when polemical in tone. In conversation with existing continental African and Latin American experiences, they offer incisive reflections on current South African debates.