Review of Mind in the Making by Ellen Galinsky

Weekly Trip to the Library

By now subscribers should have received their June 2010 issue of Be the Best Nanny Monthly Guide. In the June 2010 issue of the nanny trade publication we discuss the new book (nine years in the making) Mind In the Making by Ellen Galinsky.

Noted author and researcher Ellen Galinsky set forth to film children about how they learn. But when she asked children about learning she found that many students were expressionless and had lost the fire-in-their-eyes with a passion to learn. What happened to these kids? Passion to learn is instinctual in young children. You can't stop young children from learning.

To find out, she decided to find the best research-based advice for caregivers and parents on how to raise children with a passion to learn, to be well rounded, to achieve their full potential, to help them learn to take on life's challenges, communicate well with others, and remain committed to learning.

She concisely lists the "essential life skills" that she has spent her career pursuing. She describes simple everyday things that all caregivers can do to build these skills in children for today and for the future.

What is most special about her achievements is that she has also published a vook Mind in the Making. A vook is a video book you can watch. You can download the video book to your i-phone, i-pad, i-pod, or online. When I was a psychology major in College I remember learning about many of the experiments included in the book, but to see them video taped (rather than just reading about them in black and white print) really brings the research to life.

Since we already printed our book review in Be the Best Nanny Monthly Guide, we encourage you to watch this video in which Katie Couric interviews Ellen Galinsky in the sidebar to the right.

This upcoming week we will post some short sample videos showing the research discussed in Mind in the Making.



Ellen Galinsky, President and Co-Founder of Families and Work Institute (FWI), helped establish the field of work and family life at Bank Street College of Education, where she was on the faculty for twenty-five years. Her more than forty books and reports also include Ask The Children and the now-classic The Six Stages of Parenthood. She has published over 100 articles in academic journals, books and magazines.