Hopkins is a Reading Community

The Hopkins community is known for its voracious reading habits and dipping into a wide variety of books. The Calarco Library staff recently surveyed the community about its summer reading list. They report that “198 people responded to the survey, recommending 139 books.” The Class of 2020 had the highest student response to the survey with nearly 32% of the class sharing their list of books they recommend. Click here to read the Summer Reading Survey Results which includes the list of 139 recommended books and the top 10 titles.

Carla MacMullen, Dean of Faculty, also reports that a number of faculty used the summer months to delve into professionally-related titles.

In the education realm, David Harpin (Dean of Academics) read Thomas R. Guskey’s On Your Mark: Challenging the Conventions of Grading and Reporting which clarifies the purpose of grades, explores limitations of traditional grading practices and proposes research-based grading and reporting practices that better connect to student learning. David also read Judy Willis’ Brain-Friendly Strategies for the Inclusion Classroom which is a “very readable discussion about techniques for teaching students with learning differences.” In a similar vein, Qi Li (Modern Language/Chinese) read Differentiated Instruction: A Guide for Foreign Language Teachers by Deborah Blaz which “provided lots of ideas and tips for a differentiated modern language classroom.”

In the life skills realm and along the lines of Alex Soojung-Kim Pang’s ideas about technology and distraction (November 2014 assembly speaker), Thom Peters (History) read Sabbath in the Suburbs by MaryAnn McKibben Dana which “offers helpful observations about making intentional time to step aside from a hectic pace and schedule to fashion some "holy time.” Adam Sperling (Mathematics) read Watercooler Wisdom: How Smart People Prosper In the Face of Conflict, Pressure, and Change by Keith Bailey and Karen Leland which is filled with strategies for difficult situations that could come up during the course of the school year.

Considering curriculum, Michael Gold (Mathematics) read How to Bake Pi by Eugenia Chang and found it “full of tasty metaphors about math.” The book “describes what doing math really means while investigating the basics of the abstract field of Category Theory.” Octavio Sotelo (Science) highly recommends David Wootton’s The Invention of Science - A New History of the Scientific Revolution as “an amazing journey through the history of the scientific revolution that took place during the Renaissance” that “gives the reader a profound perspective of what science, invention and discovery really meant when the scientific revolution took place.” David DeNaples (History) read West of the Revolution by Claudio Saunt and found it “an uncommon and important look at ‘1776’ beyond the thirteen colonies” and “places the American Revolution in the context of World History.” As part of his summer professional development coursework, Joe Addison (English) read Dueling Shylocks (a chapter in The Shakespeare Wars) by Ron Rosenbaum before watching the Globe's production of The Merchant of Venice at Lincoln Center. In this piece, “Rosenbaum argues that to portray Shylock sympathetically is to deepen the anti-Semitism of the play.” The Globe performance attempted to do exactly that, and Joe found himself agreeing with both interpretations!