Erasing the Finish Line - The New Blueprint for Success Beyond Grades and College Admission

"What if a getting into top four-year college is no longer the holy grail of success that it once seemed to be? What if the key to kids achieving their potential in life has less to do with grades or test scores and more with critical skills overlooked in schools? Erasing the Finish Line directly addresses those points by highlighting a reality about our education system that we seem to hear about more and more these days-college acceptance is a faulty finish line to adolescent development, and this false finish line feeds a heightened level of anxiety and uncertainty. Erasing the Finish Line is a groundbreaking new way of thinking about education, for parents, teachers, administrators, and policymakers deeply invested in our children's well-being, happiness, and success. Academic counselor Ana Homayoun argues that we have to fundamentally change how we think about education and learning if we want to focus on eliminating barriers and helping students navigate systems in a way that helps students explore, discover and build in a way that allows interests and abilities to grow and thrive. She shows how to look beyond assessments, grades, and college acceptance as indicators of long-term success and shares new strategies, including, including how to: - Ask open-ended questions without judgment - Tie answers to those questions to the underlying foundational skills needed - Acting as a resource, connector, and sponsor as applicable - Suspend notions of disbelief, negativity, and general malaise - Convey compassion and empathy while having high expectations With this new blueprint, we can focus on critical and undervalued executive functioning skills, social capital, sponsorship, shared experiences, and greater exposure to a broader range of opportunities. In her work across tens of thousands of miles, she's seen how these foundational skills allow kids to reflect, adapt, redirect, and thrive in a world so different from the one their parents grew up in"--

About the author

Ana Homayoun is an academic advisor and early career development expert working at the intersection of executive functioning skills, technology, and personal energy management. She is the founder of Silicon-Valley based Green Ivy Educational Consulting and the executive director of Luminaria Learning Solutions, a non-profit initiative developing the Life Navigator School Advisory Program. She is the author of three previous books: That Crumpled Paper Was Due Last Week, The Myth of the Perfect Girl and Social Media Wellness. She lives in San Francisco.
 

Summary

Moving beyond a prescribed path for success, Erasing the Finish Line highlights the essential skills to help each young person thrive in school and life
For years, we’ve been led to believe that great grades, high test scores, and college acceptance are key to a successful life. Yet our laser focus on these achievements leaves students feeling anxious, demoralized, and unprepared. 
 
What if we’ve overlooked the critical skills young adults need to navigate an ever-changing world? What fundamental skills help young people adapt, persevere, and thrive?
 
Academic advisor and early career development expert Ana Homayoun answers these questions and more in her accessible and solutions-oriented guide to transforming future generations. In her ground-breaking new book, Erasing the Finish Line, Homayoun flips the way we think about education.
 
In this refreshing approach, Homayoun reveals new strategies to help each student develop their own blueprint for success, including how to:

• Develop a system based on executive functioning skills
• Build valuable social capital while fostering genuine connections
• Identify energy profile and how to recharge
• Expand perspective through immersive exposure
• Remain adaptable in the face of disappointments and setbacks

 
Through a powerful blend of theory, strategies and storytelling from former and current students, Homayoun’s layered approach to revisioning education will bring sharp realization to parents, educators, and policy-makers alike. 

Product details

• Authors: Ana Homayoun
• Publisher: Workman
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 29.08.2023
• EAN: 9780306830693
• ISBN: 978-0-306-83069-3
• No. of pages: 256
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Education > General, dictionaries