By Any Other Nerd

Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm by Robin DiAngelo My rating: 4 of 5 stars There are a lot of ways one can tackle this book and I'm sure there are myriads out--I've even read a few. Some clearly come from a disposition that they would immediately dismiss anything that DiAngelo says from the start. They often do so because they are blatantly racist (white supremacists like those who participated in the march in Charlottesville, Virginia), they buy into the idea that those seeking racial and social justice are "the problem" (folks who drink up unquestioningly their information from Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Fox News, The Blaze and the like), or those who are deeply involved in owning the game of internecine battles around racial progress and equity (Bill Maher, John McWorter, and Matt Taibbi to name a few). It's strange to see so much ire for this book because the intended audience is larg

Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success by Andratesha Fritzgerald My rating: 4 of 5 stars Fritzgerald proposes a tall order in tackling both antiracism and universal design for learning in one book--at least that might be the initial reaction for readers. But in truth, the two are a strong overlapping Venn Diagram when to comes to thinking about teaching, learning, engagement, and inclusion in our classes. Using a mixture of personal experiences, classroom situations, analogies, and reflection prompts, Fritzgerald moves through the primary pieces of universal design for learning to illustrate how each is mapped onto ideas and practices of anti-racism. Her book is not a polemic or a how-to with lots of supporting materials or exercises (for classes) per se.  Rather, she provides an earnest, well-grounded, and genuinely caring exploration of why thinking of UDL and anti-racism in tandem is so central to the success of all

Writing for Audio by Katie O Connor My rating: 2 of 5 stars This was a quick and dirty exploration of the topic that doesn't go into a lot of depth. It felt like a throw-away work for Audible ultimately that could have a lot more potential but seemed to just be put out to be put out.  Is it worth the listen?  Sure, there are a few tips and insights to consider if you are looking to write for a listening audience (or even if writing text but anticipating an audio adaptation of some sort). Some of it is to be mindful of the speaking tags (he said, she said) or think about how to make the sound more evident in your writing or how actions, personalities, etc can be translated into sound.  O'Connor interviews a handful of authors who have written Audible Originals, sharing brief snippets with each and while entertaining, I feel like it served more as a teaser than getting into a deeper conversation amongst the different writers about their

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam M. Grant My rating: 4 of 5 stars Grant takes a deep dive into the disconnect between human confidence and human knowledge; particularly how humans grapple with the Dunning-Krueger effect.  This dynamic, found in many founds, leaves us to be way more confident about what we know about something, especially, if we have only a basic understanding of it. In many circumstances, we assume we know more than we do and we live in a society that often encourages that. Thus, many of us believe we're all above average on a variety of things, but have no real basis to come to that standpoint.  So Grant explores how this happens in individuals and in groups, while then identifying ways of undoing the potential harm such views can have on us as individuals and throughout society. His goal is not to prove any individual or group wrong but to give them the tools and mechanisms to check to se