book reviews

I’m an optimist.

I refuse to believe that there are problems in the world that can’t be solved or resolved in ways we have not yet considered.

Some men see things the way they are and say “Why?”

I dream of things that never were and say “Why not?”

George Bernard Shaw

Change of attitude is what my college mentor Clyde Johnson would teach us in every class If you don’t like the answer, change the question.

Barry Nalebuff, co-author of Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big And Small  strikes me as an optimist. Watch this video, and I promise you’ll be thinking of him every time you see a banana for the rest of your life

Watch it on Academic Earth

Fuller's Earth (Classics in Progressive Education)I just ordered my copy of Fuller’s Earth, a new release of a book about Buckminster Fuller’s session with a group of children explaining how the universe works

A brilliant portrait of a dynamic teacher, Fuller’s Earth will be an inspiration to progressive educators today. Toward the end of his life, the visionary American philosopher, inventor, architect, mathematician, and poet Buckminster Fuller was asked to explain to a group of children his vision of how the universe works. The book that resulted from this encounter is not only the most straightforward exposition available of Bucky’s radical worldview but also perhaps the most lovable and personal portrait ever produced of the man who has been called “the planet’s friendly genius.”

Fuller, who wrote more than thirty books, coined and popularized terms such as “spaceship earth” and “synergetics,” and helped develop numerous design and architecture inventions, explains step-by-step the mysteries of the universe, with interruptions by the kids any time they could not follow him.

One of those kids was my friend Dr. Ben Mack, author of the best seller Think Two Products Ahead. Ben has shared his reaction to being at this event as “life changing”

Ben wrote about the experience here

If you are a interested in progressive education, expanding your mind with new ideas, or just a fan of Bucky, pick up this bookTechnorati Tags: , , ,

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