A Note on Book Structure

This book began as a pedagogical experiment to help students learn content in a deeper way. I based it on Waldorf-style schools: have students write the textbook themselves. After a semester or two, however, it quickly became clear that they were doing high-quality work--and it might be worth allowing others to see what we've put together.

As such: 

1. This book will continue to change and update.
2. I cannot guarantee that every page is accurate. You will have to exercise wisdom. Caveat emptor.
3. I am happy to give credit to students for the good, and take blame for the bad. 

A Note on Dr. Haidt

I have framed this textbook around many of the ideas of Jonathan Haidt, a prominent researcher on happiness, tribalism, moral psychology, and children. It's important to note here that Haidt has powerful ideas and is an increasingly popular voice. In my opinion, he is one of the most effective communicators of advanced ideas surrounding psychology in our time. 

Using one person's ideas, however, poses a danger: rather than a textbook on psychology according to the profession, it becomes a textbook on psychology according to Jonathan Haidt. I am still using his ideas, but I intend to add more voices as time goes on, and guard against cherry-picking voices that are in line with his thinking.

At the same time, I would not choose to so heavily emphasize his thinking if it did not back up my life experience and my views on the research. I am including him at such length because I believe he is getting so much right.

A Note on Dr. Peterson

Jordan Peterson is a prominent voice on culture war and political issues. He is, also, a prominent psychologist and an expert on personality in particular. I disagree with him on plenty of issues (and frankly think that someone needs to take his Twitter account away). I also think that he speaks on certain matters effectively, and has a gift for communicating important insights carefully.

I have elected to occasionally include him in the book's text but felt the need to offer a warning: you need not agree with his political ideas to learn from his psychology. And you need not agree with his psychology--or anyone else's. You should follow the evidence.

A Note on The Author

I am a middle-grades math teacher. I am no expert on educational psychology. I am a schools guy. I taught middle school math before becoming an assistant principal for a time. I am an expert on schools. I know classrooms well.

I will not pretend to know psychology as well.

I feel wildly underqualified to write this book. I have expertise, but not in this. I do not even possess a doctorate (gasp) as of the time I write this. I am, however, asked to teach this course--and so, will do the best I can, trepidation notwithstanding. That means having students compile good-quality materials, and this book is one example. 

In the first place, I intend to do a careful job. I welcome feedback. Email me if you see mistakes or problems, and I'll promise to carefully listen to each one.

But also, take everything in this book (and every other you read!) with a big dose of caveat emptor. It is your job to suss out what is true and what isn't.  

One way to prophylactically keep yourself safe is to read other psychology books. (Almost like reading a variety of translations of the bible.) Sousa's "How the Brain Learns" is a good starting place with a heavy focus on cognition and educational psychology. Another excellent resource I recommend is Myers and DeWall's "Psychology" which focuses on general topics. If you are a student in my class, I have loaner copies in my office that I am happy to lend out.

Note on Political Views

I sincerely hope that my politics doesn't matter much to this book, because I don't think my politics matters much generally. But in a time of polarization, I'd rather be up front. I do not so much have political views as I do moral ones. As such, should I come across as somewhat conservative, let me defend myself thus: I don't much care for that designation. I am only somewhat conservative, really. But we live in a world where conservative values are not given their due: loyalty, authority, and so on. If we lived in a world that had lost the liberal values--creativity, compassion, kindness--I hope I would be equally passionate about emphasizing those instead. I will come off as conservative now, because my contemporary culture is not. But in the first place, I'm above trying to use my class as indoctrination for paltry political ends, and in the second, I'm not sure I would fit in very well with a conservative crowd anyhow. Rather, I'm a man who sees the five moral foundations of Jonathan Haidt and wonders why we can't have a large serving of all of them.

Note on Moments

"The Power of Moments" is important to me--it's a book by Chip and Dan Heath emphasizing that individual moments can be enormously impactful in an outsized way. 

Well, I agree. 

That's why you'll find that my course is filled with much less content and far more activities: my goal is to change you, and class is sacred time in which to do so. We'll process, make meaning, and debate--but raw delivery of content should be a minority of my class. I'd rather have you experience an experiment than read about one--and I'd rather have you read about basic psychology facts and take a quiz on them in class (with discussion!) rather than learn about them in class and take a quiz on your own.

This is a flipped-classroom design, in a way: do the most important work when we are together, and give you assignments to do the content on your own. The goal is not to offload the work on to you, it's to prioritize the most important work for classtime. What that means, however, is that as much as I hope to build a book that you love to read, it will necessarily be filled with content and ideas rather than experiences. 

Those experiences will have to wait for class.