I enjoyed reading this book.

Two quotes:

118 “I also object to the “skills” portion of “noncognitive skills.” Determination, perseverance, and tenacity aren’t skills, like riding a bike, using a word processing program, or playing a G major scale on the violin. Determination, perseverance, and tenacity are capacities to be nourished, rather than skills to be acquired.

The distinction between skills and capacities is vital, because intellectual abilities and the drive to succeed are cultivated through entirely different processes.”

204 “I don’t harbor any delusions about the use of scientific evidence to inform policymaking, though. Policymakers and advocacy groups use science the way that drunks use lampposts –for support, not illumination. If the political will is absent, no amount of science, no matter how persuasive it is, is going to change the law.”

I also was fascinated by the discussion of “Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions.” This is what we do now in advisory, but not necessarily in a systematic way. I look at this blog over the past three years and most of the activities I’ve designed have been based on this idea (think of a goal, best thing that would result, obstacles, plan). (p.160 in Steinberg. Here’s the link to the study.)

Laurence Steinberg, Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015).