Leap 'N Learn Book Club | October Selection
Welcome to the Leap 'N Learn book club!
If you can't already tell, we LOVE learning. After all, it is in our name, but more importantly, it's woven into our lives. Day in, day out, year after year. We never want to stop learning. That's why we're always eager to dive into a new book. And we're guessing you have that same thirst for knowledge as we do! So we'd like to invite you to join our book club. What do you say; are you in? Please say yes!
Here is how it works...
Each month we'll read a book with the intent to learn. But don't worry, we won't be choosing any boring old textbooks. Because at Leap 'N Learn everything we do is designed to bring us joy — why else would we bother!? The books will be from various authors and cover a range of topics. The common thread is that these books will appeal to dance teachers, studio owners, and sometimes even dance moms and dads. At the beginning of every month, we'll announce the book club selection here on the blog. Then you can get your hands on a copy and read along! At the end of the month, we'll post our review and pose some questions. We hope this will lead to an insightful conversation and help us learn, and at the very least, we'll have spent some enjoyable down time with our nose in a book.
Let's get started.
For the inaugural month of the Leap 'N Learn book club, we will be reading The ABCs of How We Learn: 26 Scientifically Proven Approaches, How They Work, and When to Use Them by Daniel L. Schwartz, Jessica M. Tsang, and Kristen P. Blair.
Phew, that's a long title, but it's essentially an ABCs book for adults. Fun, right? We heard about this book on NPR (read the full interview here). The talk about ideas we already love and use in our Leap 'N Learn dance curriculum — analogy! imaginative play! — landed this book at the top of our list of what to read next.
The ABCs of How We Learn is based on a popular course at Stanford University, but written in a way that makes research easy to digest and apply, making this read just as popular outside the classroom. We especially liked the way co-author Daniel L. Schwartz, dean of Stanford's Graduate School of Education, answered the question of how teachers should use this book:
It's to fire your imagination. There's a lot of different ways that people learn. You know, there [are] different brain systems, and they all have a different appetite. And so I wanted to provide people sort of with the science, and these great examples that come from research, of very effective ways that you could help people learn things, that you might never have thought of. Now it's up to you to be creative and figure out how to put them in play.
Covering theories that help all ages learn, we expect to find new approaches for helping our little dancers learn, along with takeaways to help ourselves learn better! Win-win! Are you as excited as we are?
Our October book club selection was released this July, and as this new book is quite popular, it's sold out many places and driving up the price online (e.g., Amazon). We suggest contacting your local bookstore to see if they have it in stock or to have them order it for you. That way you can purchase the book at its list price of $24.95 and support an independent business. We just did that, and our copy should arrive in a week! Or if you don't mind reading from a device, get it on your Nook for only $16.99 or as an e-book from Google Play for $14.15. We're always advocates for checking books out from the library too.
UPDATE, 10/21 — Beverly has been reading The ABCs of How We Learn via her Nook, but Amanda just got her hands on the copy that arrived at her local bookstore. While it may be a bit of a crunch to read it all before October ends, the good news is that it's no longer back-ordered — you can find it more easily now, including on Amazon at the regular price. Go ahead and get your copy! We don't mind if you take longer to read it. Just come back to our Leap 'N Learn Book Club | October Discussion post whenever you finish to join the conversation in the comments.
P.S. We found this photo of Leslie Caron in the film An American in Paris via a Google search. This GIF of the scene is equally as enchanting.