Martin Brookes

I found this book to be absolutely fascinating!!! I agree with everything the authors were portraying as the best ways to educate students. You simply have to think about how people learn in their everyday lives to have it slap you in the face that traditional schooling methods are just flat out inconsistent with being a human! Not only does this book provide solid examples of constructivist methods, but it also provides a background that helps one understand the current trajectory of show more schools. I recommend this book to any future educator as well as any current educator who wants to experiment with the best ways to get students engaged and truly understanding the material being taught. Essentially, knowledge is something that we individually build in our minds as a complex framework with multiple interconnections based on our prior knowledge and how we simply view the world. Transmissionist techniques of teaching take none of this truth into account. The most striking idea that this book presented, at least for myself, was that the questions we think we are asking our students may not be the same questions that they actually hear. This is simply because they are children and we are adults and we cannot expect them to see the world through the same adult filter that we have, which is why using prior knowledge and the students' points of view is so incredibly important to getting them to truly connect with academic material. show less

Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, was one of the Victorian eras great polymaths. He explored unknown areas in Africa, wrote a best selling travel book, pioneered psychiatric and statistics techniques, discovered weather patterns and found how to make the best cup of tea. However his most (in)famous theory was eugenics, the study of selective breeding in humans. A theory mired in atrocity and very much feared today (designer babies anyone?).

Galton had a fascinating life and show more Brookes account eminently shows this. Easy to read, shot through with wry humour and nicely balanced you come away with a good understanding of a man who could easily of been demonised. His legacy to science is laid bare for all to see and it is astonishingly wide ranging. In fact my only criticism is I would have liked to see more of his experiments (one I believe was recently used by Derren Brown to 'predict' the UK lottery). Unexpectedly I also found it highly relevant, eugenics has not disappeared just renamed and it is extremely interesting to see where it came from. show less

A popular biography of Galton, lacking any references at all, most unfortunately (and even an index). A decent treatment of Galton's wide-ranging career; it wasn't all eugenics. Exploration, experimentation, and eccentricity all figure prominently too. As a quick intro, just fine, but serious readers will likely want more.

A good introduction to genetics and the background stories that shaped the field. Visual narrative of technical subjects always deserve attention as they offer a broader dissemination impact than other texts.