This book is completely new,
although it was first published more than ten years ago. Andreas Salcher has completely revised it. The book exposes the eternal enemies of the talented pupil. And it shows how you don't have to let the joy of learning be spoiled.
With expertise and humor, Andreas Salcher explains how we could turn schools into places where our children enjoy learning every day. There is a way from wasted talent to saved talent. Everyone can become a friend of the talented pupil.
Reading samples
"A schoolmaster would rather have ten notorious donkeys in his class than one genius, and, strictly speaking, he is right, because his job is not to educate extravagant minds, but good Latin speakers, calculators and bourgeois men." Hermann Hesse
Not much has changed since Hermann Hesse's school days. The basic consensus is that the pupil should have no difficulty in coping with school, getting through well and being a well-behaved, well-adjusted pupil. The ideal of the German and Austrian school system is to train them to be mediocre decathletes who perform as respectably as possible in all the required disciplines. The talented long-distance runner is constantly shown his failure in the shot put, the gifted hurdler his weakness in the pole vault. There is a fatal concentration on failure and the documentation of failure. For pupils, learning means learning 80 percent of what they are not interested in or even afraid of. We inoculate our children early on with the fear of doing something wrong. The consequence is that we educate children away from their creative potential. The cold mechanism with which schools fight against one-sided talents often creates lifelong suffering. Equal treatment of unequal people is therefore the greatest disadvantage.
The connection between talent and happiness
Imagine a car manufacturer where one in five newly delivered cars simply doesn't run. Or even an airline where every fifth plane crashes. But one in five children can't read with comprehension after nine years of school? "There's nothing you can do" or "It's your own fault", say the enemies of the talented pupil.
The facts that have documented the failure of our school system since the publication of my book in 2008 remain almost unchanged to this day, despite all the expensive measures such as the reduction in maximum class sizes, the introduction of the New Secondary School (NMS) with a compulsory two teachers in the main subjects, school autonomy, educational standards, the centralized school-leaving examination, etc. A public school system that cannot teach its pupils to read, write and do basic arithmetic in nine years of compulsory schooling has given up on itself.
Canada, like Austria an immigration country, proves that things can be done differently, albeit with a much smarter migration policy. In Canada, many children of immigrants speak better English after finishing school than their Canadian-born offspring. In the French-speaking part of the country, this figure is far worse, which shows once again how crucial the system is. The legendary management thinker Peter Drucker once said: "Whenever you pit an excellent person against a bad system, the bad system will always win."
The most important reason why we should take an honest look at our own talents and those of our children is personal happiness. For a fulfilled life, we need to feel that our talents are valuable and recognized. The prerequisite for this is that these talents are properly recognized and that we do not fall victim to the deceptions of our parents, teachers, superiors or ourselves.
There is a huge gap between how we could recognize and promote our children's talents today and how we actually deal with them at school. This leads to misjudgments and indifference, which set the wrong course for young people.
Why I rewrote this book
Since its first publication in March 2008, "The Talented Pupil and his Enemies" has triggered a broad public debate about our school system. This has been successful because it has hit the nerve of the times with a single question: How do we deal with our children's talents at school? Statements such as "We need to strengthen our children's strengths instead of dwelling on their weaknesses" are now commonplace.
I spent a long time interviewing some of the world's brightest minds for the book, such as Harvard professor Howard Gardner, happiness researcher Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) learning researcher Peter Senge, long-time editor-in-chief of the Harvard Business Review Alan Webber and my spiritual mentor, Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast. There were also Nobel Prize winners, such as the late Günter Blobel, who did me the honor of writing the original foreword. I was voted both "Author of the Year" and "Communicator of the Year" for the "Talented Student". So far, so good.
Unfortunately, there is one thing that the book has still not managed to achieve: that those pedagogical principles that have been clearly researched scientifically and are implemented on a daily basis in some outstanding schools find their way into the teaching practice of our school system. All pupils would have a right to a subject called "communication and social skills", a personal coach, self-determined learning in learning offices, individual learning goals in addition to school reports, interdisciplinary case studies in real life and, above all, excellent teachers working in teams. The living school could be a place where children enjoy learning to understand their world a little better every day.
What's new in this new edition?
A book cannot change a school system. But it can certainly encourage parents, pupils, teachers and head teachers in their fight against a mediocre school system. After six editions, "The Talented Pupil" has not been available in hardback or paperback for two years. Unfortunately, its mission is not yet complete. That's why I decided to completely revise the book. Here is the table of contents:
The taboos in our school system
The talent destruction industry or why we can no longer afford the systematic destruction of our children's talents at school
Individual talent as a disruptive factor or why schools try to turn talented sprinters into bad marathon runners
A simple truth or Why the best schools in the world don't cost more than the worst
The dictates of mediocrity or why the best teachers are bullied instead of promoted at school
The uneducated generation or why more and more parents are blaming schools for their own failures
The dark side of powerlessness or How much rejection and misjudgment can a young person take?
The black hole or where the talents of many young people disappear to on their way to adulthood
The principle of self-responsibility or how parents can properly promote their children's talents
School as survival training or do only the toughest make it?
The educationally disadvantaged are getting closer and closer - When 80 percent of a class can't follow the lessons
The digital revolution reaches the classroom - Why we shouldn't ban cell phones, but use the opportunities of new learning instead
The power of folly - absurdities and curiosities in our school system
Frontline reporting: Of petty wars in the classroom and ideological battles
Crime scene school - My strangest cases as a student lawyer
Why we must finally introduce real all-day schools instead of arguing about comprehensive schools
The school of the future or Why the wheel was invented a long time ago
The right school for your child - a list of criteria
The friend of the talented student