3 X 5's: Index Card Wisdom from Best of Books

TOOLS Tim Ferris (2016). Tools for Titans:                                      The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires,                                      Icons, and World Class Performers. Ferris is an entrepreneur, author, and podcaster--best known for his "4-hour" book series (e.g., The 4-hour Workweek, The 4-hour Body ...). Ferris curates the best parts of interviewers from his podcasts and frames them as "tools" for better living. There is so much good stuff, and it is impossible to capture all of the teachings from so many people. The book is 705 pages long! The wisdom/advice from each person is summarized in 1-4 pages--I recommend reading one person a week, trying something out for the week, and incorporating the best long-term. Some of my favorites: ...

ROCK N ROLL MYSTERY Goodall, H. L. (Budd), Jr. (1991). Living in the ROck N Roll                                                                                       Mystery:  Reading Context, Self,                                                                         and Others as Clues. Goodall was a professor of Commuication, and the present book is the 2nd in part of a trilogy, the 1st being, Casing a Promised Land , and the 3rd being Divine Signs . For Goodall, communication is about shared activities (not necess...

POETRY Maya Angelou (1993). Wouldn' Take Nothing For My Journey Now . Angelou is best known for her poetry...never graduated high school, dropped out because he was pregnant, raised a son on her own mostly, eventually became a writer, a published poet and story-teller, awarded honorary doctrates. some of the hard won wisdom from hard life experiences: traveling to other cultures shows our common humanity--we all cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die take pleasure in small things, like playing cards and laughing with others--all gift there are people who went to sleep last night and will never wake again--those dead folks would give anything for just another hour or day to live...so let's not complain....if we don't like something, change it, and if we can't, change the way we think about it [AMEN SISTER!] everyone needs to take a day away--24 hours to do nothing, just wander, withdraw from the cares of the world...works like a spring tonic [i would call this a "retreat ...

TALKING STICK Stephan Beyer (2016). Talking Stick:                                               Peacemaking as a Spiritual Path Beyer holds a PhD and JD...he weaves indigenous, academic, nonviolence, and wisdom of St. Francis into council circle peacemaking. Instructions to experiment with in using the talking stick in the context of council circle: create a sacred space where all (as few as 2 people, no upper limit--i would say, no more than 12) can sit in circle and see each other--the circle means all are equal (no hierarchy) have a center piece for the circle that represents the group or group's intent (each person can contribute an item, or one item can be chose, e.g., a candle) use ceremony (simple and short--e.g, choose a weather word to describe how you're feeling) to begin and end the circle time  pass around a talking stick (any symb...

BARENBOIM Daniel Barenboim (2008). Everything is Connected:                                                       The Power of Music Barenboim is a musician and conductor of symphonies in America and Europe and travels globally. I was inspired by interviews with him on YouTube and was enticed by the title of his book...i was disappointed in the book overall as much of the book is technical, meant for individuals with a music background, and a good chunk of the book is about politics in the middle east (he created an orchestra of Israeli and Palestinian people thinking if they could play music together, maybe they could find ways to live together in peace), and history of Nazi Germany and the classical composers Hitler used for propaganda. Nonetheless, there were a few take-home points: music has the power to change conscious...

COMPUTER COMFORT Paul Linden (2000). Comfort At Your Computer:                                           Body Awareness Training for                                          Pain Free Computer Use. Linden is a PhD in physical education, holds a black belt in Aikido, and developed the Being in Movement mind-body training (he has a free e-bok called Reach Up on body awareness training: https://www.being-in-movement.com/resources/). the essence of the book is to FEEL your body...ware of when and where there is discomfort and gently moving in ways that promote stability, comfort and well-being...there are many exercises to try out on nearly every other page of the book. practically, everyone can take advantage of Linden's advice...take re...

QUESTIONS Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana (2011).       Make Just One Change:       Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions. Rothstein has a doctorate in education and Santana an MA in Human Services, both are educators. The book is based on 20 years of piloting, testing, and refining the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), which was inspired by a parent comment in a PTA meeting: "We don't know what to ASK, or, we don't know how to ask questions. The steps for the QFT are deceptively simple, and the rules must be followed for the technique to empower, motivate, and allow students to develop their divergent (generate a diverse set of questions), convergent (assess and focus on a few questions), and metacognitive (explore reasons for their choices) thinking muscles: 1. Produce Questions based on teacher stimulus...this could be a word, phrase, picture, recording, etc. (the stimulus should be:  simple, clear, provocative)   using the foll...