Education for the Joy of It

This book is targeted to all current or prospective high school students, college students, or anyone else who aspires to strengthen the educational foundation upon which to build the rest of her/his life -- with the hope that it is especially helpful to people who might otherwise become, or have already been formal educational program dropouts or lockouts. I cannot guarantee that applying what is offered here will ensure an "A" grade, or achievement of one's life goals. But I do guarantee that I have tried to summarize critical elements of thought, feeling, and action oriented to such objectives. Part I of this book is all about how to work both hard and "smart" to experience the joy of academic success. Hard work is necessary to achieve anything worthy of pride in our own creative effort. But it's not just how much or how hard we work at things. It is also "how smart" we work that determines our life outcomes. And what I mean by "working smart" is working efficiently and effectively. The goal here is to help all students reap as much as possible from their educational investment, whatever that investment may be in terms of time, money, energy, and self-disciplined personal sacrifices. Part II is about what it takes to achieve great success at anything in life. The format for this second part is, essentially, a psychological profile of outstanding achievers. From both my professional and personal experience, I've learned how vitally important education can be as an avenue to a pro-socially valued and personally satisfying life. And once again in 2014, I find myself championing an approach designed to facilitate human development through educational opportunity in a program I call "Life Construction 101" -- designed not just to augment efforts to help at-risk students, but to help every student enjoy academic success experiences. Education For The Joy Of It is the "user's manual" for that Life Construction 101 program. Accordingly, the Appendix to this book presents a brief, structured exercise designed to provide a very preliminary template for initiating the construction or reconstruction of one's life. And that's it. A little book that I hope will be one of the biggest books its readers ever read. RJP