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You Are Not Special, and Other Encouragements
You Are Not Special and Other Encouragements Author:David McCullough Jr. A profound expansion of David McCullough, Jr.'s popular commencement speech -- a call to arms against a prevailing, narrow, conception of success viewed by millions on YouTube -- You Are (Not) Special is a love letter to students and parents as well as a guide to a truly fulfilling, happy life. — Children today, says David McCul... more »lough -- high school English teacher, father of four, and son and namesake of the famous historian -- are being encouraged to sacrifice passionate engagement with life for specious notions of success. The intense pressure to excel discourages kids from taking chances, failing, and learning empathy and self-confidence from those failures.
In You Are (Not) Special, McCullough elaborates on his now-famous speech exploring how, for what purpose, and for whose sake, we're raising our kids. With wry, affectionate humor, McCullough takes on hovering parents, ineffectual schools, professional college prep, electronic distractions, club sports, and generally the manifestations, and the applications and consequences of privilege. By acknowledging that the world is indifferent to them, McCullough takes pressure off of students to be extraordinary achievers and instead exhorts them to roll up their sleeves and do something useful with their advantages.
David McCullough never expected that his commencement speech in 2012 would go viral and be talked about all over the world. Now he gives insights to that speech, school, family, and life in general in a witty and poignant way that is good for parents and teens.« less