Are you interested in a philosophical linking of adversity to success? The Obstacle is the Way is a collection of historical examples where people found guidance, motivation, or meaning in various nadirs of life. It may be true that thinking more deeply about the struggles at your school or in your career will shine light on the best path ahead.

Want to help students find their passion? Dive into Inquiry has the prompts to help. Want to open up the ways students do research and collect data? There are examples here for you. Want to demonstrate learning in public and in new ways? You guessed it… you will be guided on that front as well.

James Altucher gives us page after page of reframing how we operate in Skip the Line. Think you need 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” to master something? What about a steady string of experiments to see what's possible? Think you need to network in person with business cards? What about sending four targeted texts every single day. No need to wait your turn, this book will show you how to create opportunity and then invite others to join you!

Have you ever wanted to start your own school? In Courage to Grow, Laura Sandefer takes the reader from the inception of the Acton Academy School model to scaling it internationally. The Sandefer family decided one day to open a new school model because they were unsatisfied with their children’s traditional schooling.

Think capturing market share, hiring employees, and growing rapidly are the signs of a successful business? In Company of One, Paul Jarvis is here to turn these preconceived notions on their head. Jarvis will convince you that new tech platforms and changes in access to labor have opened the door for companies of one to reach many people and make plenty of money while keeping control of the company in one person’s hands.

Think Masters of Scale has nothing to do with school? If you are thinking about how school used to be, you may be right. If you are thinking about how we might educate all children more uniformly, then you may be quite wrong. What is working well at your school or in education that might be able to scale so that it benefits all?

Nudge is a great book for teachers and administrators to read as we want to guide children towards learning a bit easier. If we see ourselves as “choice architects” more and purveyors of knowledge less, our students will certainly be better off. This is a great read for any educator looking to set up relevant choices for their students and/or teachers.

At first blush, Algorithms to Live By might seem too narrow to support our work in education. In reality though, there are concepts and dilemmas throughout that can reframe our work. If you see yourself as an analytical or model thinker, there will be sections here that will push your thinking and improve your school for sure.

Have you ever run a class discussion and felt you didn’t get the best from your students? Have you ever tried to guide a student and felt that the perfect words just wouldn’t come? Peter Johnston has written Choice Words with exactly those moments in mind. You will be challenged to reframe the way you ask questions and respond to students so they feel valued and land on the learning themselves.

Critical Thinking takes the reader through all the ways deep cognition helps in life… including in leadership! Want to be aware of your biases? Check! Want to learn more about all the ways thinking helps and hurts us in life? Check. If you want to think more profoundly about thinking and how it might improve your classroom or school, then this is a great book for you.

In Think Like a Monk, Jay Shetty calls his readers to a life of service noting that service fulfills us on many levels. We are born to care for others, so service does us good. By design, teaching is a service profession. How long has it been since you have examined your practice as an educator through the lens of love and as an act of service?

If you’ve ever thought that it would be easier to scrap the current system of education and start over… then Design Thinking for School Leaders was written for you. Gallager and Thordarson show how empathy combines with being an “opportunity seeker”, “experience architect”, “rule breaker”, “producer”, and “storyteller” to create a culture where designing change becomes the norm.

Small Teaching Online by Flower Darby and James Lang looks at the small teaching methods that can be implemented in online classes to have a large impact. While largely focused on higher education, Small Teaching Online provides ideas and strategies for delivery content and enhancing learning in an online format. Constant changes in our world makes becoming familiar with online teaching practices an imperative for all educators and this book does the trick!

Daniel Pink’s When showcases extensive research and enlightening case studies to explain how and why timing is so important to human flourishing and productivity. Simple tweaks of school schedules would boost test scores, lower depression, increase student cognition, and even improve decision-making among faculty and administration. For this reason and many others, all educators would all benefit from a deeper exploration of this enjoyable read.

Ever wonder how your mind works on its own and/or with others? If you answered yes, boy are you in luck! Dawna Markova and Angie McArthur have written Collaborative Intelligence with you in mind. You will learn about the kinesthetic, visual and auditory patterns of thinking, how to put forth the best thinking for different situations, and understand the Inquiry Compass.

Wonder what’s ailing American schools? Ted Dintersmith spent a year traveling America to find out and highlight solutions. What Schools Could Be is the report from his trip to 50 states, 200 schools, over a hundred community forums, and over a thousand meetings. Innovation from K-12, online, colleges and universities as well as more short-term immersive experiences are all highlighted.

David Epstein uses Range to convince the reader that it may in fact be the generalists who add more value as the world becomes more and more complex. His basic premise is that for complex problem-solving and decision-making, it is often those with broad experience and diverse backgrounds who fare better (e.g., professionals with hobbies outside of their profession).

Alan Jacobs’ How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds blends a practical approach to thinking with the structured, researched-based approach of an academic. Whether diagnosing past and current problems of human thinking or prescribing tailored solutions to these problems, Jacobs provides just the right information needed right now to rebuild and maintain the social fabric of our country (and our schools) while still pursuing truth in earnest.

Are you always asking questions about the world? Do you wish you were more curious? Warren Berger uses A More Beautiful Question to train you to think systematically and deeply about questions that we ask.

In The Power of Moments, the Heath brothers piece together research, personal anecdotes, history, and psychology to clarify something that affects us all… moments in our lives. They clarify the conditions that increase the chances they are memorable, like creating “peak moments”(eg. college acceptance communication), “leveling up” your pride (e.g. Boy Scout levels), and connections (e.g. team-building exercises) all enhance the moments of our lives