Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children

by Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek

Overview

New York Times Bestseller! 

Becoming Brilliant offers solutions that parents can implement right now. Backed by the latest scientific evidence and illustrated with examples of what’s being done right in schools today, this book introduces the 6Cs—collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation, and confidence—along with ways parents can nurture their children’s development in each area.

In just a few years, today's children and teens will forge careers that look nothing like those their parents and grandparents knew. Even the definition of "career" and "job" are changing as more people build their own teams to create new businesses, apps, and services. Although these changes are well underway, our system of K–12 education in the United States lags behind.

Our education system still subscribes to the idea that content is king. The exclusive focus on content is reflected in what we test and how we teach, and even the toys we offer our children at home. Employers want to hire excellent communicators, critical thinkers, and innovators — in short, they want brilliant people. But they are often disappointed. So what can we do, as parents, to help our children be brilliant and successful? Stories about the failures of our educational system abound, but most of them stop after pointing out the problems. Becoming Brilliant goes beyond complaining to offer solutions that parents can apply right now.

Authors Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek provide a science-based framework for how we should be educating children in and outside of school. Parents become agents of change for children's success when they nurture six critical skills. Constructed from the latest scientific evidence and presented in an accessible way rich with examples, this book introduces the 6Cs — collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation, and confidence — along with tips to optimize children's development in each area. Taken together, these are the skills that will make up the straight-A report card for success in the 21st century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781433822391
Publisher:	American Psychological Association
Publication date:	05/15/2016
Series:	APA LifeTools Series
Pages:	314
Sales rank:	352,168
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, PhD, obtained her bachelor's degree at Brooklyn College, her PhD at Cornell University, and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at the Learning Research and Development Center of the University of Pittsburgh. She is the Unidel H. Rodney Sharp Professor of Education, Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, and Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Delaware. She has won numerous awards for her work, including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the James McKeen Cattell Sabbatical Award, the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society, and two awards from APA: the Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science and Distinguished Scientific Lecturer. With her long-standing colleague Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Dr. Golinkoff was the 2015 recipient of the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award for lifetime contributions to applied psychological science. She routinely travels worldwide to speak to academic as well as lay groups. Having written more than 150 articles and 16 books, monographs, and special journal issues, she is an expert on language development, playful learning, and early spatial knowledge. Three of her books are directed at parents and practitioners because she is passionate about dissemination. To bring the science of learning to the streets, Dr. Golinkoff cofounded the Ultimate Block Party movement to celebrate the science of learning.
 
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, PhD, is the Stanley and Debra Lefkowitz Distinguished Faculty Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Temple University and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Her research examines the development of early language and literacy, as well as the role of play in learning. With her long-term collaborator, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, she is the author of 14 books and hundreds of publications. She is the recipient of APA's Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society, Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science, and Distinguished Scientific Lecturer award, as well as the Association for Psychological Science's James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award.  Dr. Hirsh-Pasek is a fellow of APA and the American Psychological Society and the president-elect of the International Society for Infant Studies. She has served as the associate editor of Child Development. Her book Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Children Really Learn and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less won the prestigious Books for a Better Life Award as the best psychology book in 2003. Dr. Hirsh-Pasek received her bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh and her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.
 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 3

Chapter 1 Redefining Success in the 21st Century 11

Chapter 2 The Learning Industry and the Learning Sciences: How Educational Reform Sent Us in the Wrong Direction 23

Chapter 3 The Skills Needed for Success Are Global 33

Chapter 4 Hard Skills and "Soft Skills": Finding the Perfect Balance 43

Chapter 5 Collaboration: No One Can Fiddle a Symphony 57

Chapter 6 Communication: Lines of Connection 85

Chapter 7 Toppling the King That Is Content 117

Chapter 8 Critical Thinking: What Counts as Evidence? 157

Chapter 9 Creative Innovation: Rearranging the Old to Make the New 187

Chapter 10 Confidence: Dare to Fail 217

Chapter 11 A Report Card for the 21st Century 247

Epilogue: What If? The Reprise 265

Notes 267

Index 301

About the Authors 313

What People are Saying About This

Rebecca Winthrop

An essential read for parents and anyone interested in how to best support our children.

Wendy Kopp

Becoming Brilliant is an easy but important read for parents and educators seeking to understand the latest global research and thinking about the competencies today’s children need to thrive in the 21st Century.

Rosemarie T. Truglio

A must-read for parents, educators, and policy makers. The authors do an outstanding job of illuminating the science behind how children learn.

Editorial Reviews

Plenty of examples and practical tips are provided for raising children with the skills they need to thrive in today's world.

Grand Forks Herald

This well-written book is of interest to anyone who wants to learn more about parenting, education, and characteristics of a successful humane workforce… With its nontechnical and easy-to-read style, [it] has potential to disseminate important findings about parenting and education to a broader audience.

PsycCRITIQUES

Expertly written, organized and presented, Becoming Brilliant is especially "reader friendly" and highly recommended for personal, community, and academic library Parenting Skills collections.

Midwest Book Review

Children need the kind of education that prepares them to think, be creative, and innovate. Drawing on input from business leaders as well as the science of learning, Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek suggest six core competencies that will create the ‘thinkers and entrepreneurs of tomorrow’: collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creativity, and confidence. The authors detail how these skills build upon each other throughout development and try to point out how each competency can be ‘scaffolded’ (broken down into teachable components) at different ages…. There is converging evidence that Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek are correct in broad strokes and that children and schools do better when there is an emphasis on softer skills, like social and emotional learning.

The Greater Good Science Center

Features a new framework, based on the science of learning and development, to help parents think about cultivating the skills people really need to succeed.

NPR

An essential read for every parent that wants to understand their children’s brain and it’s workings.

Brainsmith

Tailored specifically to a 21st century global economy.

Forbes

Parents especially are going to great lengths to push their kids to achieve, in the hope that will guarantee success…we adults can help them get all the smarts they’ll need.

Psychology Today

New York Times Bestseller
Bronze Medal, Living Now Book Awards, Parenting
Featured on motherly.com

“Features a new framework, based on the science of learning and development, to help parents think about cultivating the skills people really need to succeed.”—NPR

“Parents especially are going to great lengths to push their kids to achieve, in the hope that will guarantee success…we adults can help them get all the smarts they’ll need.” —Psychology Today

"Expertly written, organized and presented, Becoming Brilliant is especially "reader friendly" and highly recommended for personal, community, and academic library Parenting Skills collections."—Midwest Book Review

“Children need the kind of education that prepares them to think, be creative, and innovate. Drawing on input from business leaders as well as the science of learning, Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek suggest six core competencies that will create the ‘thinkers and entrepreneurs of tomorrow’: collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creativity, and confidence. The authors detail how these skills build upon each other throughout development and try to point out how each competency can be ‘scaffolded’ (broken down into teachable components) at different ages…. There is converging evidence that Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek are correct in broad strokes and that children and schools do better when there is an emphasis on softer skills, like social and emotional learning.” —The Greater Good Science Center
 
“A must-read for parents, educators, and policy makers. The authors do an outstanding job of illuminating the science behind how children learn.” —Rosemarie T. Truglio, PhD, Senior Vice President of Curriculum and Content, Sesame Workshop
 
“Becoming Brilliant is an easy but important read for parents and educators seeking to understand the latest global research and thinking about the competencies today’s children need to thrive in the 21st Century.” —Wendy Kopp, Founder of Teach For America and CEO and Cofounder, Teach For All
 
 “An essential read for parents and anyone interested in how to best support our children.” —Rebecca Winthrop, PhD, Director, The Center for Universal Education, The Brookings Institution
 
“Tailored specifically to a 21st century global economy.” —Forbes
 
“This well-written book is of interest to anyone who wants to learn more about parenting, education, and characteristics of a successful humane workforce… With its nontechnical and easy-to-read style, [it] has potential to disseminate important findings about parenting and education to a broader audience.” —PsycCRITIQUES
 
“Plenty of examples and practical tips are provided for raising children with the skills they need to thrive in today's world.” —Grand Forks Herald
 
“An essential read for every parent that wants to understand their children’s brain and it’s workings.”   —Brainsmith

From the Publisher