Acton Academy: The one-room schoolhouse for the twenty-first century Seeking a 21st century education for their children, Laura and Jeff Sandefer jumped off the track of conventional school and created a new model for learning. They created Acton Academy as a better school where learning is made practical and meaningful and where students begin a lifelong Hero's Journey to discover their true potential. Using the Socratic method, elements of the Montessori approach and state-of-the-art online instruction, Acton guides students toward independence and self-motivation, helping them find the courage to grow into the person they were meant to be. Soon, other parents wanted to start their own Acton Academies, and less than a decade from the seven founding students' first Socratic discussion, Acton has spread around the world. ​Courage to Grow is the Sandefer family's personal quest for their own children's education and happiness. Their story also contains a path for other parents who want to give their children the freedom to take ownership of their own education and to start their own school. The treasure at the end is much larger than Laura ever expected--a quickly growing network of dedicated, curious young people and parents who are not afraid to set them free.

Here is Barbara Crafton at her best—funny, warm, direct, honest, and vulnerable—on aging. “I think growing older is both funny and sad, but mostly it just makes me grateful to be alive and able to reflect. I have been an Episcopal priest for 33 years and have had extensive experience in ministering with the elderly. Now, I am growing old myself. I hate it when people are ashamed of being old. We should be proud!” she proclaims. Join her in this celebration of life!

This unusual self-help book about surviving grief offers the reader comfort and inspiration. Each of us will face some loss, sorrow and disappointment in our lives, and The Courage to Grieve provides the specific help we need to enable us to face our grief fully and to recover and grow from the experience. Although the book emphasizes the response to the death of a loved one, The Courage to Grieve can help with every kind of loss and grief. Judy Tatelbaum gives us a fresh look at understanding grief, showing us that grief is a natural, inevitable human experience, including all the unexpected, intense and uncomfortable emotions like sorrow, guilt, loneliness, resentment, confusion, or even the temporary loss of the will to live. The emphasis is to clarify and offer help, and the tone is spiritual, optimistic, creative and easy to understand. Judy Tatelbaum provides excellent advice on how to help oneself and others get through the immediate experience of death and the grief that follows, as well as how to understand the special grief of children. Particularly useful are the techniques for completing or "finishing" grief--counteracting the popular misconception that grief never ends. The Courage to Grieve shows us how to live life with the ultimate courage: not fearing death. This book is about so much more than death and grieving it is about life and joy and growth.

An entertaining and engaging read that will help you find the courage you need to grow personally. Expect to see a change in the way you think and in what you do when it comes to your personal dreams and aspirations. After all, being tall isn't a matter of feet or inches. It's a matter of having the courage and belief that comes from thinking taller.

An inspirational, practical, and research-based guide for standing up and speaking out skillfully at work. Have you ever wanted to disagree with your boss? Speak up about your company's lack of diversity or unequal pay practices? Make a tough decision you knew would be unpopular? We all have opportunities to be courageous at work. But since courage requires risk—to our reputations, our social standing, and, in some cases, our jobs—we often fail to act, which leaves us feeling powerless and regretful for not doing what we know is right. There's a better way to handle these crucial moments—and Choosing Courage provides the moral imperative and research-based tactics to help you become more competently courageous at work. Doing for courage what Angela Duckworth has done for grit and Brene Brown for vulnerability, Jim Detert, the world's foremost expert on workplace courage, explains that courage isn't a character trait that only a few possess; it's a virtue developed through practice. And with the right attitude and approach, you can learn to hone it like any other skill and incorporate it into your everyday life. Full of stories of ordinary people who've acted courageously, Choosing Courage will give you a fresh perspective on the power of voicing your authentic ideas and opinions. Whether you’re looking to make a mark, stay true to your values, act with more integrity, or simply grow as a professional, this is the guide you need to achieve greater impact at work.

"This book is for teachers who have good days and bad -- and whose bad days bring the suffering that comes only from something one loves. It is for teachers who refuse to harden their hearts, because they love learners, learning, and the teaching life." - Parker J. Palmer [from the Introduction] Teachers choose their vocation for reasons of the heart, because they care deeply about their students and about their subject. But the demands of teaching cause too many educators to lose heart. Is it possible to take heart in teaching once more so that we can continue to do what good teachers always do -- give heart to our students? In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer takes teachers on an inner journey toward reconnecting with their vocation and their students -- and recovering their passion for one of the most difficult and important of human endeavors.

The Courage to Grow: Leading with Intentionality shows educational leaders how to design and carry out a leadership professional development plan. It is a guide that allows leaders to construct their own learning to measure knowledge, assess growth, and improve performance. This training manual is for theteacher leader, beginning principal, practicing principal, assistant principal, department chair, district office administrator, aspiring leadership candidate, and professor of principal preparation. Chapters begin with a section called Learning with Intentionality, as defined as an intense energy or desire to grow exponentially, followed by a personal application of Caring with Intentionality. Chapters 2 – 7 include a leadership self-assessment utilizing the ISLLC Standards and conclude with growth activities. Depending on their leadership roles, the readers can select activities best suited to grow performance from present realities to ideal conditions for learning. The reader is then encouraged to design a personal Action Plan that takes into account knowledge from each chapter, strategies for growing performance with intentionality, and self-assessment results. Finally, each chapter includes websites, resources, and activities to improve leadership.