13 Ways to Kill Your Community is lively, full of personality, conversational, breezy, succinct, and fun. One can imagine readers seeking out information on boosting their local community sighing dutifully as they seek out material and then being relieved and delighted when what they find turns out to be as entertaining as it is informative. The information provided is sometimes startling and often positively revelatory. The anecdotes and examples are delivered with wit and a little bit of a dishy factor. But underneath all the fun is a clear breadth of experience, and a no-nonsense, practical approach to community building, which can be easily grasped. 13 Ways to Kill Your Community offers practical, implementable steps that can be taken to bring a moribund community back to life. This book delivers what it promises, and it does so with wit and warmth....
Let’s suppose you have a really ambitious goal in life – you want to kill your community! You want to drive away people, eliminate jobs, undermine businesses, and you won’t quit until the whole place is in ruins. Don’t know how to go about it? You’re in luck – here is a handy manual, chock-full of proven ideas, for the up-and-coming town wrecker. This is the book for you! But suppose you have a different goal – you want to save your community. You want to promote growth, ensure prosperity, build for the future. Well, you too can benefit from 13 Ways. All you have to do is follow the advice in reverse, and before you know it, you and your neighbours will have built a thriving, successful community that’s the envy of everyone.
Play dates, soccer practice, day care, political correctness, drudgery without facts, television, video games, constant supervision, endless distractions: these and other insidious trends in child rearing and education are now the hallmarks of childhood. As author Anthony Esolen demonstrates in this elegantly written, often wickedly funny book, almost everything we are doing to children now constricts their imaginations, usually to serve the ulterior motives of the constrictors. Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child takes square aim at these accelerating trends, in a bitingly witty style reminiscent of C. S. Lewis, while offering parents—and children—hopeful alternatives. Esolen shows how imagination is snuffed out at practically every turn: in the rearing of children almost exclusively indoors; in the flattening of love to sex education, and sex education to prurience and hygiene; in the loss of traditional childhood games; in the refusal to allow children to organize themselves into teams; in the effacing of the glorious differences between the sexes; in the dismissal of the power of memory, which creates the worst of all possible worlds in school—drudgery without even the merit of imparting facts; in the strict separation of the child’s world from the adult’s; and in the denial of the transcendent, which places a low ceiling on the child’s developing spirit and mind. But Esolen doesn’t stop at pointing out the problem; he offers clear solutions as well. With charming stories from his own boyhood and an assist from the master authors and thinkers of the Western tradition, Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child is a welcome respite from the overwhelming banality of contemporary culture. Interwoven throughout this indispensable guide to child rearing is a rich tapestry of the literature, music, art, and thought that once enriched the lives of American children. Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child confronts contemporary trends in parenting and schooling by reclaiming lost traditions. This practical, insightful book is essential reading for any parent who cares about the paltry thing that childhood has become, and who wants to give a child something beyond the dull drone of today’s culture.
Read-i-cide: The systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools. Reading is dying in our schools. Educators are familiar with many of the factors that have contributed to the decline, poverty, second-language issues, and the ever-expanding choices of electronic entertainment. In this provocative book Readicide: How Schools are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It , author and teacher Kelly Gallagher suggests it is time to recognize a new and significant contributor to the death of reading: our schools. Readicide , Gallagher argues that American schools are actively (though unwittingly) furthering the decline of reading. Specifically, he contends that the standard instructional practices used in most schools are killing reading by:Valuing standardized testing over the development of lifelong readersMandating breadth over depth in instructionRequiring students to read difficult texts without proper instructional support and insisting students focus on academic textsIgnoring the importance of developing recreational readingLosing sight of authentic instruction in the looming shadow of political pressuresReadicide provides teachers, literacy coaches, and administrators with specific steps to reverse the downward spiral in reading-;steps that will help prevent the loss of another generation of readers.
EVIL KENEVIL MEETS THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA IN THIS ORIGINAL FAST AND THE FURIOUS! THE GREATEST DAREDEVIL OF THEM ALL - BECAUSE HE DOESN'T CARE IF HE LIVES OR DIES! Blake Edmonds had it all - fame, money, looks... and then the world-famous F1 driver suffered a terrible accident which left him hideously disfigured. Fashioning a mask to hide his terrible visage, Edmonds has taken on a new career as a stuntman, flirting with death on a regular basis.
A framework for overcoming the six types of innovation killers Everybody wants innovation—or do they? Creative People Must Be Stopped shows how individuals and organizations sabotage their own best intentions to encourage "outside the box" thinking. It shows that the antidote to this self-defeating behavior is to identify which of the six major types of constraints are hindering innovation: individual, group, organizational, industry-wide, societal, or technological. Once innovators and other leaders understand exactly which constraints are working against them and how to overcome them, they can create conditions that foster innovation instead of stopping it in its tracks. The author's model of constraints on innovation integrates insights from the vast literature on innovation with his own observations of hundreds of organizations. The book is filled with assessments, tools, and real-world examples. The author's research has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, London Guardian and San Jose Mercury News, as well as on Fox News and on NPR's Marketplace Includes illustrative examples from leading organizations Offers a practical guide for bringing new ideas to fruition even within a previously rigid organizational culture This book gives people in organizations the conceptual framework and practical information they need to innovate successfully.
Empower Your Business, Your Town, and Your Fellow Citizen to Prosper as Never Before Town Inc. unpacks the deceivingly simple link between building a booming business and growing a prosperous town. The secret, it turns out, is to market your town just as passionately as you market your own business. In cities across America, business leaders are telling uniquely compelling stories to lure other businesses and a willing workforce to relocate to their towns. Their towns flourish and their businesses prosper.
A structural shortage of qualified workers is creating a zero-sum labor market that is forcing communities to steal talent from each other in order to survive and grow. The cause of this impending economic disaster: a baby boom generation who didn't have enough kids and an education system that has failed to properly prepare students for the new demands of today's market.
If you want kids to do God’s Word and not just hear it—you’re in exactly the right place. Each session focuses on one key Bible truth—kids will discover it, think about it, talk about it, pray about it, and apply what they learn. You’ll drive that point home through Bible exploration, fun discussions, giggle-worthy games, and oh-wow activities that engage kids in multiple ways. Just add an adult or teenage leader to these easy-to-lead sessions to keep kids engaged, entertained, and growing in their faith! Each session is Flexible—sessions work for 1 or 2 kids, 12 kids, or more Multi–aged—suitable for all elementary kids Low–prep—using easy-to-find supplies 45 minutes of fun—with time stretchers to fill an hour Relational—children grow close to Jesus and each other Perfect for any children’s ministry program—Sunday school, children’s church, and more! Help kids discover the faith-building, life-changing truths tucked into the stories of 13 animals that God created. They will see how God used some thirsty camels, low-flying quail, a talking donkey, and more. Along the way, kids will be assured that God knows them and loves them—and is ready to use them in big ways too!
The Giver, the 1994 Newbery Medal winner, has become one of the most influential novels of our time. The haunting story centers on twelve-year-old Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community. This movie tie-in edition features cover art from the movie and exclusive Q&A with members of the cast, including Taylor Swift, Brenton Thwaites and Cameron Monaghan.
