Becoming Brilliant What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children

New York Times Bestseller! 

Becoming Brilliant offers solutions that parents can implement right now. Backed by the latest scientific evidence and illustrated with examples of what’s being done right in schools today, this book introduces the 6Cs—collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation, and confidence—along with ways parents can nurture their children’s development in each area.

In just a few years, today's children and teens will forge careers that look nothing like those their parents and grandparents knew. Even the definition of "career" and "job" are changing as more people build their own teams to create new businesses, apps, and services. Although these changes are well underway, our system of K–12 education in the United States lags behind.

Our education system still subscribes to the idea that content is king. The exclusive focus on content is reflected in what we test and how we teach, and even the toys we offer our children at home. Employers want to hire excellent communicators, critical thinkers, and innovators — in short, they want brilliant people. But they are often disappointed. So what can we do, as parents, to help our children be brilliant and successful? Stories about the failures of our educational system abound, but most of them stop after pointing out the problems. Becoming Brilliant goes beyond complaining to offer solutions that parents can apply right now.

Authors Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek provide a science-based framework for how we should be educating children in and outside of school. Parents become agents of change for children's success when they nurture six critical skills. Constructed from the latest scientific evidence and presented in an accessible way rich with examples, this book introduces the 6Cs — collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation, and confidence — along with tips to optimize children's development in each area. Taken together, these are the skills that will make up the straight-A report card for success in the 21st century.

Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, PhD, obtained her bachelor's degree at Brooklyn College, her PhD at Cornell University, and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at the Learning Research and Development Center of the University of Pittsburgh. She is the Unidel H. Rodney Sharp Professor of Education, Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, and Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Delaware.
 
She has won numerous awards for her work, including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the James McKeen Cattell Sabbatical Award, the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society, and two awards from APA: the Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science and Distinguished Scientific Lecturer. With her long-standing colleague Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Dr. Golinkoff was the 2015 recipient of the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award for lifetime contributions to applied psychological science.
 
She routinely travels worldwide to speak to academic as well as lay groups. Having written more than 150 articles and 16 books, monographs, and special journal issues, she is an expert on language development, playful learning, and early spatial knowledge. Three of her books are directed at parents and practitioners because she is passionate about dissemination.
 
To bring the science of learning to the streets, Dr. Golinkoff cofounded the Ultimate Block Party movement to celebrate the science of learning.
 
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, PhD, is the Stanley and Debra Lefkowitz Distinguished Faculty Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Temple University and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Her research examines the development of early language and literacy, as well as the role of play in learning.
 
With her long-term collaborator, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, she is the author of 14 books and hundreds of publications. She is the recipient of APA's Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society, Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science, and Distinguished Scientific Lecturer award, as well as the Association for Psychological Science's James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award.
 
Dr. Hirsh-Pasek is a fellow of APA and the American Psychological Society and the president-elect of the International Society for Infant Studies.
 
She has served as the associate editor of Child Development. Her book Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Children Really Learn and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less won the prestigious Books for a Better Life Award as the best psychology book in 2003.
 
Dr. Hirsh-Pasek received her bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh and her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.