What begins as a laughable, tongue-in-cheek journey ends at the nature of man with a four-year-old child leading the way. To see a world you've ignored, To see the best in yourself, To see mankind, Learn to see average.

The Importance of Average calls attention to the policies and practices that discriminate against the silent majority of students in the American educational system. Arguments presented emphasize the collateral damage caused to average students by legislative mandates, administrative policies, teaching practices, parenting beliefs, and adherence to strict psychological constructs. Each of these factors has created a pervasive psycho-educational belief of average ability. The authors challenge what they consider as a pseudo-definition of "average" that was brought about as an attempt by policymakers to test their way out of addressing the true inequities found in society. Further, the authors identify how educational policymakers have sacrificed the education of an entire class of students by creating the illusion that underachievement can be eliminated simply through lowering standards and examination pass rates. In chronicling the plight of average students, the authors capture the emotions and attitudes of teachers, parents, and students whose frustrations have been set aside in order to meet other special interests. The authors explore methods that provide students of average knowledge in any given area with the appropriate tools necessary for succeeding in school. Finally, the authors argue that there is no such thing as "average" intelligence.

“Christakis . . . expertly weaves academic research, personal experience and anecdotal evidence into her book . . . a bracing and convincing case that early education has reached a point of crisis . . . her book is a rare thing: a serious work of research that also happens to be well-written and personal . . . engaging and important.” --Washington Post "What kids need from grown-ups (but aren't getting)...an impassioned plea for educators and parents to put down the worksheets and flash cards, ditch the tired craft projects (yes, you, Thanksgiving Handprint Turkey) and exotic vocabulary lessons, and double-down on one, simple word: play." --NPR The New York Times bestseller that provides a bold challenge to the conventional wisdom about early childhood, with a pragmatic program to encourage parents and teachers to rethink how and where young children learn best by taking the child’s eye view of the learning environment To a four-year-old watching bulldozers at a construction site or chasing butterflies in flight, the world is awash with promise. Little children come into the world hardwired to learn in virtually any setting and about any matter. Yet in today’s preschool and kindergarten classrooms, learning has been reduced to scripted lessons and suspect metrics that too often undervalue a child’s intelligence while overtaxing the child’s growing brain. These mismatched expectations wreak havoc on the family: parents fear that if they choose the “wrong” program, their child won’t get into the “right” college. But Yale early childhood expert Erika Christakis says our fears are wildly misplaced. Our anxiety about preparing and safeguarding our children’s future seems to have reached a fever pitch at a time when, ironically, science gives us more certainty than ever before that young children are exceptionally strong thinkers. In her pathbreaking book, Christakis explains what it’s like to be a young child in America today, in a world designed by and for adults, where we have confused schooling with learning. She offers real-life solutions to real-life issues, with nuance and direction that takes us far beyond the usual prescriptions for fewer tests, more play. She looks at children’s use of language, their artistic expressions, the way their imaginations grow, and how they build deep emotional bonds to stretch the boundaries of their small worlds. Rather than clutter their worlds with more and more stuff, sometimes the wisest course for us is to learn how to get out of their way. Christakis’s message is energizing and reassuring: young children are inherently powerful, and they (and their parents) will flourish when we learn new ways of restoring the vital early learning environment to one that is best suited to the littlest learners. This bold and pragmatic challenge to the conventional wisdom peels back the mystery of childhood, revealing a place that’s rich with possibility.

From the millionaire entrepreneur and New York Times bestselling author of The 10X Rule comes a bold and contrarian wake-up call for anyone truly ready for success. One of the 7 best motivational books of 2016, according to Inc. Magazine. Before Grant Cardone built five successful companies (and counting), became a multimillionaire, and wrote bestselling books... he was broke, jobless, and drug-addicted. Grant had grown up with big dreams, but friends and family told him to be more reasonable and less demanding. If he played by the rules, they said, he could enjoy everyone else’s version of middle class success. But when he tried it their way, he hit rock bottom. Then he tried the opposite approach. He said NO to the haters and naysayers and said YES to his burning, outrageous, animal obsession. He reclaimed his obsession with wanting to be a business rock star, a super salesman, a huge philanthropist. He wanted to live in a mansion and even own an airplane. Obsession made all of his wildest dreams come true. And it can help you achieve massive success too. As Grant says, we're in the middle of an epidemic of average. The conventional wisdom is to seek balance and take it easy. But that has really just given us an excuse to be unexceptional. If you want real success, you have to know how to harness your obsession to rocket to the top. This book will give you the inspiration and tools to break out of your cocoon of mediocrity and achieve your craziest dreams. Grant will teach you how to: · Set crazy goals—and reach them, every single day. · Feed the beast: when you value money and spend it on the right things, you get more of it. · Shut down the doubters—and use your haters as fuel. Whether you're a sales person, small business owner, or 9-to-5 working stiff, your path to happiness runs though your obsessions. It's a simple choice: be obsessed or be average.

The Importance of Being Understood is an innovative and thought-provoking exploration of the links between the way we think about each other's mental states and the fundamentally cooperative nature of everyday life. Adam Morton begins with a consideration of 'folk psychology', the tendency to attribute emotions, desires, beliefs and thoughts to human minds. He takes the view that it is precisely this tendency that enables us to understand, predict and explain the actions of others, which in turn helps us to decide on our own course of action. This relection suggests, claims Morton, that certain types of cooperative activity are dependent on everyday psychological understanding conversely, that we act in such a way as to make our actions easily intelligible to others so that we can benefit from being understood. This idea of 'beneficial circularities' is at the core of Morton's investigation of the interdependencies between folk psychology and social behaviour: we understand each other because we have learned to make ourselves intelligible. Using examples of cooperative activities such as car driving and playing tennis, Adam Morton analyses the concepts of belief and simulation, the idea of explanation by motive, and the causal force of psychological explanation. In addition to argument and analysis, Morton also includes more speculative explorations of topics such as moral progress and presents a new point of view on how and why cultures differ. The Importance of Being Understood forges new links between ethics and the philosophy of mind and will be of interest to anyone in either field, as well as developmental psychologists.

When you were a kid, if someone told you that you would grow up and have an average life, you would be upset. You had dreams when you were younger, but as you got older, you believed the whispers that told you that you needed to be safe and realistic. You started to settle, and before you know it, everything around you was average and far from what you dreamed. To be allergic is to develop a strong dislike for something because you don't like it or because it's harmful. Being average is something you should not like, but it's also dangerous for you. It means you are leaving talent and potential unused. Average also means that you are not living with a purpose. All of that changes now! In Allergic to Average, author Ian Warner walks you through how he found out he was Allergic to Peanuts in high school. As he adjusted to this new reality, he had to deal with many ups and downs and outright scary moments. As he was learning about his new Allergy, he was also the discovery that he was allergic to average. As he tells these stories, he gives you practical stories that you can relate to, and that helps you to spot where in your life you have chosen to settle. He also gives practical advice on what you can do to move away from average. This Book is For The Person Who: -Wants More- Needs Purpose -Is Tired of Being Discouraged of Others -Keeps Starting New Things - Has No Direction - Is In the Middle of a Project and Needs Inspiration to Finish - Working on Their Side Hustle - Wants to Start Building Better Habits - Wants More Than Life - Have Dreams They Are Not Pursuing Buy Allergic to Average Today!

Familiar and resonant, Cline's collection takes readers into a private landscape of science fiction, pop culture, and pornography. Ernest Cline is a geek, novelist, poet, and screenwriter based in Austin, Texas. In addition to winning poetry slams, Cline is known for screenwriting "Fanboys," released in 2009. He also recently sold the film rights to his latest book, "Armada."

"The great American fantasy is about leisure: wooded getaways, Caribbean cruises, white-water rafting, the lights of Las Vegas. Yet one in four Americans does not take a vacation at all. We know how to work hard but not how to play. What we really need, argues Al Gini, is some time off. The Importance of Being Lazy takes us on family road trips, to Disneyland, on shopping sprees, on extreme sports adventures, and into the ultimate vacation - retirement - showing why we venerate vacations and why "doing nothing" is a fundamental human necessity. In a witty, breezy tour of our workaholic society, where the summer at the seashore has been supplanted by the long weekend, Gini draws on studies of Americans' vacation habits as well as interviews, personal stories, and the wry observations of philosophers, writers, and sociologists from Aristotle to Mark Twain to Thorstein Veblen. Without true leisure, Gini says, we are diminished as individuals and as a society. The Importance of Being Lazy is our road map for learning how to play, doze, gaze, amble and goof-off without guilt." - back cover.

Renowned economist and author of Big Business Tyler Cowen brings a groundbreaking analysis of capitalism, the job market, and the growing gap between the one percent and minimum wage workers in this follow-up to the New York Times bestseller The Great Stagnation. The United States continues to mint more millionaires and billionaires than any country ever. Yet, since the great recession, three quarters of the jobs created here pay only marginally more than minimum wage. Why is there growth only at the top and the bottom? Economist and bestselling author Tyler Cowen explains that high earners are taking ever more advantage of machine intelligence and achieving ever-better results. Meanwhile, nearly every business sector relies less and less on manual labor, and that means a steady, secure life somewhere in the middle—average—is over. In Average is Over, Cowen lays out how the new economy works and identifies what workers and entrepreneurs young and old must do to thrive in this radically new economic landscape.

If you're intrigued by the fact that Jack the Ripper was left-handed, or that Heinz ketchup flows at 0.7 miles per day - and, more importantly, intrigued by why you're intrigued - then this book is required reading. Convinced that our love of trivia must reveal something truly important about us, Mark Mason sets out to discover what that something is. And, in the process, he asks the fundamental questions that keep all trivialists awake at night: Why is it so difficult to forget that Keith Richards was a choirboy at the Queen's coronation when it's so hard to remember what we did last Thursday? Are men more obsessed with trivia than women? Can it be proved that house flies hum in the key of F? Can anything ever really be proved? And the biggest question of them all: is there a perfect fact, and if so what is it?