Five Stars by Carmine Gallo

I often read business books and think about how they could apply in a school setting. One that seems an excellent match – for teachers and for students – is the recent FIVE STARS by Carmine Gallo, bestselling author of Talk Like TED. Here, Gallo stresses “presentation literacy” and emphasizes the importance of communication, saying, “Mastering the art of persuasion – combining words and ideas to move people to action – is no longer a ‘soft’ skill. It is the fundamental skill to get from good to great in the age of ideas.”  Gallo splits the book into three main section, one that explains why great communicators are essential, another that profiles scientists, (e.g., Neil deGrasse Tyson) plus a variety of entrepreneurs and other professionals who excel at communication and finally, an outline of how to get from good to great. It’s in that last section where Gallo devotes chapters to topics like The Pathos Principle, Three Act Storytelling Structure (situation, complication, resolution), The Big Picture, Smart Words and so on; similar points are often emphasized by our English teachers, especially.  I found FIVE STARS to be an inspirational and useful guide which has potential as a One School, One Book type read. For example, as Junior Themes become more issue oriented, wouldn’t it be interesting to encourage students to explore developing and sharing data with sites mentioned by Gallo like Kaggle? As we continue to develop critical thinking, creativity, and empathy amongst our students, FIVE STARS will be a valuable tool.

New non-fiction titles

Here are several non-fiction books which will shortly appear on our shelves:

I am personally most intrigued by REINVENTING CAPITALISM IN THE AGE OF BIG DATA by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger. I have had several students this year who read his earlier work on Big Data and others who are writing Junior Themes that deal with neo-liberalism and the economy. No doubt, they would all be interested in the predictions that Oxford professor Mayer-Schonberger and his co-author, Thomas Ramge of the Economist, make regarding the potential scenario where cash, banks, and big companies become obsolete.  As noted in its description, this book highlights “small groups and individual actors who make markets instead of making things: think Uber instead of Ford, or Airbnb instead of Hyatt.”   They argue that the impact on the labor market will be as disruptive as the industrial revolution, resulting in an on-going need for significant re-training of workers, increased dependence on artificial intelligence, and exploration of policies such as universal basic income. Thought-provoking and a bit scary. 

 

Another business-related title, HOW TO TURN DOWN A BILLION DOLLARS: THE SNAPCHAT STORY by Billy Gallagher, begins with stories of frat life at Stanford (not unlike the fictionalized Frat Girl by fellow Stanford alum, Kelly Roache). Livin’ hard, playin’ hard and taking risks seems a theme for Gallagher and his friends, Snapchat founders Reggie Brown, Bobby Murphy and current CEO Evan Spiegel.  The attitude of privilege, arrogance, and entitlement is pervasive. This book would likely give our students some insights into the seeds of a rather toxic Silicon Valley culture about which they have frequently heard. Booklist says, “Gallagher spends as much time on the excesses, lawsuits, and high employee turnover at Snapchat as he does on the technology.” In fact, parent company Snap has just this week confirmed layoffs for 120 engineers after a significant redesign – that aspect may appeal to some of our entrepreneurial students who often look for examples of overcoming adversity and beginning anew. They, too, may even ultimately agree with the recent New York Times article, “Silicon Valley is Over, Says Silicon Valley” which extols the opportunities and benefits on investing in the Midwest.

Even though she, too, graduated from a prestigious institution (Cambridge University), a far different start in life was had by Tara Westover as described in her new memoir titled EDUCATED. This book was a February Library Reads selection where it is described as follows: “Westover recounts her childhood growing up in a strict Mormon family, ruled by an erratic father, and living off the grid in Idaho. Westover compellingly sketches her years growing up, her relationships with siblings, encounters in the town nearby, and the events that eventually drove her to leave and pursue formal education” first at Brigham Young and later at Cambridge.  EDUCATED is a difficult read in parts, especially due to her family circumstances with a paranoid, mentally ill father, a mother who suffers a traumatic brain injury in a car accident and a violent, abusive older brother.  Additional reviews can be found in The Economist (“a riveting memoir of a brutal upbringing”) and The Wall Street Journal (where Susan Wise Bauer asks, “why some learners latch onto knowledge thirstily while others don't”). Westover’s EDUCATED has been compared to The Glass Castle so do look for this new memoir if you liked Jeannette Wall’s work.

Some New Titles from University Presses

EXCEPTIONAL AMERICA is written by Mugambi Jouet who teaches at Stanford Law School. In the description for this book, the publisher (University of California Press), notes that “Anti-intellectualism, conspiracy-mongering, a visceral suspicion of government, and Christian fundamentalism are far more common in America than the rest of the Western world—Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.”  It honestly was a surprise at first to see America described in such anti-intellectual terms relative to other countries, but then I realized how aptly that descriptor fit with recent calls and emails about the need to preserve library funding due to current budget cut proposals.  Jouet explores the growing radicalization of conservative America and what divides us from each other.  This , too, fits with the news: note, for example, the demonstrations being called for the six month anniversary of the election and a Wall Street Journal article (“When the CEO Met the CEO President”) quoting a business leader who says, “if we don’t do something fundamentally different soon, we are going to have class warfare, and that’s a scary thing.”

In the extensively researched and footnoted EXCEPTIONAL AMERICA, Jouet includes a quote from Tocqueville describing Americans as having “a grasp of public affairs, a knowledge of laws and precedents … and an ability to understand them [which] is greater there than in any other place on earth.” Jouet then questions whether this is still true, saying, “in vast segments of modern America, its people are arguably the least informed of all Westerners and the likeliest to ignore the greater good.” Even if they only spend time on a relatively short excerpt, this book will prompt some critical thinking and great discussions for our students.

In BATTLES FOR FREEDOM, Pulitzer Prize winning historian Eric Foner explores some different aspects of American radicalism. Available from independent publisher I.B.Taurus, this book contains 24 pieces written by Foner and published in The Nation over the past forty years. He particularly focuses on the politics of history and the politics of race.  The first piece (“The Men and the Symbols”) deals with the controversy surrounding American “justice” as applied to two immigrants, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. In the last (“Letter to Bernie”), Foner acknowledges Sanders’ role in forcing “the questions of economic inequality and excessive corporate power to the center of our political discourse.” As a side note, our Advanced Placement US History students examining nineteenth century events frequently consult other texts by Foner:  Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men and The Fiery Trial.

From Yale University Press, SOUL OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT provides an overview of freedom of speech and is written by legal expert Floyd Abrams, who has taught at Yale Law School and litigated cases such as the Pentagon Papers and Citizens United. Abrams, too, contrasts, America with other Western democratic states, noting that the First Amendment (his “rock star of the American Constitution”) contains only 45 words, including nine which prohibit the government from “abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.”  Abrams divides his argument into sections which provide some historical context, compares the legal protection in the US to other countries, explains the importance of Bridges v. California, examines the right to be forgotten and the funding of political campaign spending and then concludes with a discussion of ongoing issues like those concerning classified materials. It is that last section which is particularly interesting, since Abrams begins, “having sweeping First Amendment rights does not begin to answer the question of how to use them.” Much to ponder here.
  

 

WE ARE DATA by John Cheney-Lippold was published this week by New York University Press and deals with privacy and the right to be forgotten. As the subtitle notes, Cheney-Lippold is writing about “Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves.”  The cover is very cool, right? And the first chapter explains “algorithmic knowledge production” or “how computers create categories through patterns in data.”  Much of the content, though, is fairly detailed and involves complex ideas and new vocabulary (measureable types, soft biopolitics, dividual privacy, datafied subject relations and so forth). Consequently, WE ARE DATA will have most appeal for those students beyond our high school group.