美国社会学界最重要的奖项之一，赖特·米尔斯奖（C. Wright Mills Award）2011年度图书 《特权：圣保罗中学精英教育的幕后》是一部参与式观察研究的范本，作者通过考察一所美国精英高中的日常，研究精英意识和行为是如何一步步在社会互动中形成的。尤其是，在现代信息社会知识易得的情况下，这些年轻人在接纳美式勤奋观的同时，不再比拼知识的占有。他们淡化了对“高尚情趣”和“ 你认识谁”的重视程度，取而代之关心一个人认识世界的方式和在这个世界里扮演的角色。这条成为精英的道路很特别，奇妙地结合了当代文化习俗和古典价值观。像圣保罗和常春藤这样的院校看上去越来越不像一个排外的游艇俱乐部，而是越来越接近我们多样性社会的一个缩影——一个包含细致具体的社会规则的微观世界。

The dramatic findings of a ground-breaking study of 120 immensely talented individuals reveal astonishing new information on developing talent in young people. •The Nature of the Study and Why It Was Done •Learning to Be a Concert Pianist •One Concert Pianist •The Development of Accomplished Sculptors •The Development of Olympic Swimmers •One Olympic Swimmer •Learning to Be a World-Class Tennis Player •The Development of Exceptional Research Mathematicians •One Mathematician: “Hal Foster” •Becoming an Outstanding Research Neurologist •Phases of Learning •Home Influences on Talent Development •A Long-Term Commitment to Learning •Generalizations About Talent Development

What is the secret of talent? How do we unlock it? In this groundbreaking work, journalist and New York Times bestselling author Daniel Coyle provides parents, teachers, coaches, businesspeople—and everyone else—with tools they can use to maximize potential in themselves and others. Whether you’re coaching soccer or teaching a child to play the piano, writing a novel or trying to improve your golf swing, this revolutionary book shows you how to grow talent by tapping into a newly discovered brain mechanism. Drawing on cutting-edge neurology and firsthand research gathered on journeys to nine of the world’s talent hotbeds—from the baseball fields of the Caribbean to a classical-music academy in upstate New York—Coyle identifies the three key elements that will allow you to develop your gifts and optimize your performance in sports, art, music, math, or just about anything. • Deep Practice Everyone knows that practice is a key to success. What everyone doesn’t know is that specific kinds of practice can increase skill up to ten times faster than conventional practice. • Ignition We all need a little motivation to get started. But what separates truly high achievers from the rest of the pack? A higher level of commitment—call it passion—born out of our deepest unconscious desires and triggered by certain primal cues. Understanding how these signals work can help you ignite passion and catalyze skill development. • Master Coaching What are the secrets of the world’s most effective teachers, trainers, and coaches? Discover the four virtues that enable these “talent whisperers” to fuel passion, inspire deep practice, and bring out the best in their students. These three elements work together within your brain to form myelin, a microscopic neural substance that adds vast amounts of speed and accuracy to your movements and thoughts. Scientists have discovered that myelin might just be the holy grail: the foundation of all forms of greatness, from Michelangelo’s to Michael Jordan’s. The good news about myelin is that it isn’t fixed at birth; to the contrary, it grows, and like anything that grows, it can be cultivated and nourished. Combining revelatory analysis with illuminating examples of regular people who have achieved greatness, this book will not only change the way you think about talent, but equip you to reach your own highest potential.

This book focuses on mechanisms of familiar schooling that cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a by-product of rote-memorisation drills. Gatto's earlier book, "Dumbing Us Down", put that now-famous expression of the title into common use worldwide. This book promises to add another chilling metaphor to the brief against schooling. Here is a demonstration that the harm school inflicts is quite rational and deliberate, following high-level political theories constructed by Plato, Calvin, Spinoza, Fichte, Darwin, Wundt, and others, which contend the term 'education' is meaningless because humanity is strictly limited by necessities of biology, psychology, and theology. The real function of pedagogy is to render the common population manageable. Realising that goal demands that the young be conditioned to rely upon experts, remain divided from natural alliances, and accept disconnections from the experiences that create self-reliance and independence. Escaping this trap requires a different way of growing up, one Gatto calls 'open source learning'. In chapters such as 'A Letter to Kristina, my Granddaughter'; 'Fat Stanley'; and, 'Walkabout: London', this different reality is illustrated.

印度理工学院是世界上管理最严格和最有影响力的理工学院，它被视为“精英工厂”，其众多校友分布在全球各个行业的最高管理层。本书作者探访了大量著名的印度理工校友，为我们展示了印度理工毕业生各个精彩的侧面。 本书作者试图解释：这所在20世纪50年代才建立的学校，如何快速成为一个光芒耀眼的传奇品牌？是什么深深地影响了印度理工学院毕业生的情感和性格，并改变了他们的生活轨迹？他们如何成为所在领域的领导者？本书还探讨了印度理工学院为印度发展作出的贡献和人才流失的问题。 本书内容由作者对母校的回忆、校友的生动故事和客观深刻的分析串成，文笔轻松晓畅，故事真实而鲜为人知，具有很强的可读性。 印度理工学院被称为“最有效益的大学”，本书对我国大学如何用较小的成本构建世界一流大学具有较大的借鉴意义。