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The Path to Purpose: Helping Our Children Find Their Calling in Life Kindle Edition
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William Damon
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William Damon
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Product description
Review
The Path to Purpose is a beautiful and important book. William Damon takes on one of the most hidden and yet important elements of child development today and provides warm insight and clear advice." -- Michael Gurian, author of The Wonder of Boys and The Wonder of Girls
"If you are a parent, a teacher, or a policy maker, this is the book to read. Damon socks the crucial problem of our youth -- purposelessness -- right in the jaw and offers us a way out." -- Martin Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness
"As a leading authority on meaning and moral development, Damon writes a timely and important book on one of our most pressing social issues -- how to instill a sense of purpose in the lives of children. Damon gives us a fresh and useful way to look at both education and character development." -- Dr. Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia and Writing to Change the Worlds --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
"If you are a parent, a teacher, or a policy maker, this is the book to read. Damon socks the crucial problem of our youth -- purposelessness -- right in the jaw and offers us a way out." -- Martin Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness
"As a leading authority on meaning and moral development, Damon writes a timely and important book on one of our most pressing social issues -- how to instill a sense of purpose in the lives of children. Damon gives us a fresh and useful way to look at both education and character development." -- Dr. Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia and Writing to Change the Worlds --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
William Damon is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, and a professor of education at Stanford University. Damon's current research explores how young people develop character and a sense of moral purpose in work, family, and community relationships. He also examines how young people can approach careers with an emphasis on creative innovation, excellence, and social responsibility.
Daniel Henning is a director, producer, actor, and writer. His work has been seen on HBO, CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, MTV, Comedy Central, and on stages throughout Southern California. He won a 2017 Telly Award for Best Writer for the film version of his play The Tragedy of JFK (as Told by Wm. Shakespeare). As director and writer, his TV and film work includes MTV's Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory and the film Critic's Choice. He won the NAACP Theatre Award for Best Director of a Musical for The Wild Party. He is the Founding Artistic Director of Hollywood's The Blank Theatre, winning over 200 awards for his productions, including Best Production, from LA Drama Critic Circle, LA Weekly, Ovations, NAACP, etc. Henning has been inspirational to thousands of young artists through his creation of The Blank's Young Playwrights Festival (the only professional nationwide competition for playwrights aged nine to nineteen). He directed the first play by 2016 Tony Award Winner for Best Play Stephen Karam when Stephen was seventeen and a winner in The Blank's Young Playwrights Festival. Henning has also been an acting teacher and coach and is known for his ability to spot young talent. He has given opportunities to many young actors who later went on to success in Hollywood including Tessa Thompson, Noah Wyle, Alison Brie, Molly Shannon, Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer, and Sarah Michelle Gellar. He coached Sarah Michelle Gellar on her auditions for the landmark TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and they shared a close personal friendship, even traveling to Australia together with family for New Year's Eve 2000, where the paparazzi photographed Henning and Gellar dancing. For several months, Henning was rumored to be dating Gellar in the Australian fan magazines (including Big Hit Magazine), which, of course, was inaccurate as Henning was traveling with his husband, Rick Baumgartner. He is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Circle in the Square Theatre School, and American Conservatory Theatre. His work for LGBTQ Equality includes creating the fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of the Black Cat Protests (the first major LGBTQ Demonstration in the US) and directing and hosting the 2017 LA City Council LGBTQ Pride Ceremony. He was recently honored by the CA State Legislature for his work in LGBTQ Equality and nurturing the future of the Arts. He has also narrated dozens of audiobooks, both nonfiction and fiction. --This text refers to the audioCD edition.
Daniel Henning is a director, producer, actor, and writer. His work has been seen on HBO, CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, MTV, Comedy Central, and on stages throughout Southern California. He won a 2017 Telly Award for Best Writer for the film version of his play The Tragedy of JFK (as Told by Wm. Shakespeare). As director and writer, his TV and film work includes MTV's Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory and the film Critic's Choice. He won the NAACP Theatre Award for Best Director of a Musical for The Wild Party. He is the Founding Artistic Director of Hollywood's The Blank Theatre, winning over 200 awards for his productions, including Best Production, from LA Drama Critic Circle, LA Weekly, Ovations, NAACP, etc. Henning has been inspirational to thousands of young artists through his creation of The Blank's Young Playwrights Festival (the only professional nationwide competition for playwrights aged nine to nineteen). He directed the first play by 2016 Tony Award Winner for Best Play Stephen Karam when Stephen was seventeen and a winner in The Blank's Young Playwrights Festival. Henning has also been an acting teacher and coach and is known for his ability to spot young talent. He has given opportunities to many young actors who later went on to success in Hollywood including Tessa Thompson, Noah Wyle, Alison Brie, Molly Shannon, Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer, and Sarah Michelle Gellar. He coached Sarah Michelle Gellar on her auditions for the landmark TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and they shared a close personal friendship, even traveling to Australia together with family for New Year's Eve 2000, where the paparazzi photographed Henning and Gellar dancing. For several months, Henning was rumored to be dating Gellar in the Australian fan magazines (including Big Hit Magazine), which, of course, was inaccurate as Henning was traveling with his husband, Rick Baumgartner. He is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Circle in the Square Theatre School, and American Conservatory Theatre. His work for LGBTQ Equality includes creating the fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of the Black Cat Protests (the first major LGBTQ Demonstration in the US) and directing and hosting the 2017 LA City Council LGBTQ Pride Ceremony. He was recently honored by the CA State Legislature for his work in LGBTQ Equality and nurturing the future of the Arts. He has also narrated dozens of audiobooks, both nonfiction and fiction. --This text refers to the audioCD edition.
Product details
- ASIN : B00179FNPA
- Publisher : Free Press; Reprint edition (22 April 2008)
- Language : English
- File size : 466 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 240 pages
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Best Sellers Rank:
230,570 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 108 in Parenting Teenagers (Kindle Store)
- 234 in Parenting Teenagers (Books)
- 5,430 in Education Studies & Teaching
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4.5 out of 5 stars
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Top review from Australia
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Reviewed in Australia on 19 May 2015
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An easy, logical and well researched book on how to help young people live to their potential and find their purpose. Highly recommended
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Top reviews from other countries

P.M. - satisfied customer
5.0 out of 5 stars
Strongly recommend
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 July 2020Verified Purchase
Very good book. Promote a purpose in any education system should be seen as a priority. Strongly recommend this book.

SO
3.0 out of 5 stars
Seems ok
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 March 2019Verified Purchase
Haven’t finished reading it yet.

jonathan barker
5.0 out of 5 stars
Helpful Overview of Huge Societal Problem
Reviewed in Canada on 27 January 2014Verified Purchase
I'm a twenty-something looking to find my way after University and I've been seeking out books on the subject. No book has explained the threat that lack of direction can have on a persons life better than this. There are lots of reasons why this is happening, and the book goes through all of them one by one. This is highly recommended for policy makers, school counselors, teachers and parents that are looking to help their kids find meaning.
There is a helpful survey at the end that brings a lot of your life into focus.
To be honest, I still haven't found my purpose, but I feel more comfortable in my skin with knowing its a global problem and that I'm not alone.
Five Stars.
There is a helpful survey at the end that brings a lot of your life into focus.
To be honest, I still haven't found my purpose, but I feel more comfortable in my skin with knowing its a global problem and that I'm not alone.
Five Stars.
3 people found this helpful
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Brian Johnson | Optimize
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book is fantastic.
Reviewed in the United States on 13 June 2016Verified Purchase
This work led me to examine how young people find their purposes in life. Do adolescents have purposes, and if so, how do they learn them? What kinds of purposes, in addition to those related to careers, are inspiring today’s young? What happens when young people are unable to find any purpose at all to devote themselves to? The present book is the first account of the insights that I and my students have been gaining through our initial research into these questions.”
~ William Damon from The Path to Purpose
William Damon is a Professor at Stanford and one of the world’s leading researchers on the science of morality and child development. (This is the third Note we’ve created on his great books. Check out Noble Purpose + The Power of Ideals.)
In The Power of Ideals, he profiled six “moral exemplars”—truly world-changing humans who embodied the best within us. (The sample included such luminaries as Nelson Mandela, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt and Dag Hammarskjöld.)
In this book, William offers us insight into how twelve remarkable young people have found and expressed their purpose—giving us insight into how we can help our children discover and express theirs.
Basically, it’s a scientific look at Purpose by one of the world’s leading developmental psychologists—a powerful look at how to cultivate purpose in our children (and, for that matter, ourselves) and why it’s so important.
I'm excited to share some my favorite Big Ideas:
1. Life Purpose - Let's define it.
2. Short Horizons - Is what gets in the way.
3. Urgent Project for Parents - 9 key things to consider.
4. Entrepreneurial Spirit - Keys to cultivate.
5. "You Can Do It!" - A worthy mantra for parents.
Here’s to helping our kids (and ourselves) live lives of deep meaning and purpose as we optimize and actualize.
More goodness— including PhilosophersNotes on 300+ books in our *OPTIMIZE* membership program. Find out more at brianjohnson . me.
17 people found this helpful
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Kevin Currie-Knight
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Things We Don't Teach
Reviewed in the United States on 24 July 2009Verified Purchase
There are many things we teach in school. We teach students about the world at large, how to remember useful facts, how to think. But one thing we often miss is the importance of teaching kids to find and cultivate a purpose. Helping students to find their goal in life, their reason for doing the things they do, and their "end in itself" is just as important. The main thesis of this well-written and -argued book is that kids who have a purpose generally tend to do a whole lot better in a whole lot of areas than kids who are "drifters" or "dabblers," who may have short-term goals but lack a long-term unifying goal.
The Path to Purpose is based on some studies that Damon and his students have done about kids and purposes. What they found is alarming: "In our interviews and surveys, only about one in five young people in the 12-22-year age range express a clear vision of where they want to go,what they want to accomplish in life, and why." (kindle location 234) Some are "drifters" who don't have much direction to their lives, while most are "dabblers" who have toyed around with a few ideas as to what they want to do and why, but haven't found any clear direction yet.
The first part of the book focuses on the problem and why it matters. Why a purpose? Because cultivating a sense of purpose gives kids (and adults) a reason to try hard, a passion about which to learn, and a reason to endure both good and bad. Just like working a meaningful job versus a meaningless one, students tend to excel when they are working towards a goal and feel that goal to have meaning.
The second part will be the most interest to those already convinced that a problem exists. Here, Damon gives advice on how parents and teachers (with focus on parents) can help kids find purpose. Some answers are obvious: be there for your kids, listen when they talk, expose them to ideas, support them even when you may not agree with their chosen purpose (within reason, of course). Other answers are less obvious: tell your kids why you do what you do, expose them to outside influences, talk ideas through with them Socratically rather than solving problems for them, let them know the importance of persistence.
The one thing I will deduct a star for, however, is that Damon doesn't focus nearly as much as he should have on the data showing that having a purpose tends to lead to success in most areas (academic, social, etc.) He tells us this repeatedly and there is no reason to doubt him, but I was curious as to what the data show: how much more successful are those with purpose versus those without?
Also, I really wish Damon would have addressed a question many of us (especially teachers) have about how we can talk about purpose in a way value-neutral enough to be appropriate and not preachy. How can we guide kids towards purposeful lives without imposing certain values on them (when a child, say, chooses a purpose we may feel is maladaptive)? This would have been a helpful discussion to have and his book suffers for lack of it.
But all in all, this is a very important book to read for teachers and parents. As a teacher, I would like its message to inform my future teaching, and to take time whenever possible to allow kids to reflect on what their purpose is or what they'd like it to be.
The Path to Purpose is based on some studies that Damon and his students have done about kids and purposes. What they found is alarming: "In our interviews and surveys, only about one in five young people in the 12-22-year age range express a clear vision of where they want to go,what they want to accomplish in life, and why." (kindle location 234) Some are "drifters" who don't have much direction to their lives, while most are "dabblers" who have toyed around with a few ideas as to what they want to do and why, but haven't found any clear direction yet.
The first part of the book focuses on the problem and why it matters. Why a purpose? Because cultivating a sense of purpose gives kids (and adults) a reason to try hard, a passion about which to learn, and a reason to endure both good and bad. Just like working a meaningful job versus a meaningless one, students tend to excel when they are working towards a goal and feel that goal to have meaning.
The second part will be the most interest to those already convinced that a problem exists. Here, Damon gives advice on how parents and teachers (with focus on parents) can help kids find purpose. Some answers are obvious: be there for your kids, listen when they talk, expose them to ideas, support them even when you may not agree with their chosen purpose (within reason, of course). Other answers are less obvious: tell your kids why you do what you do, expose them to outside influences, talk ideas through with them Socratically rather than solving problems for them, let them know the importance of persistence.
The one thing I will deduct a star for, however, is that Damon doesn't focus nearly as much as he should have on the data showing that having a purpose tends to lead to success in most areas (academic, social, etc.) He tells us this repeatedly and there is no reason to doubt him, but I was curious as to what the data show: how much more successful are those with purpose versus those without?
Also, I really wish Damon would have addressed a question many of us (especially teachers) have about how we can talk about purpose in a way value-neutral enough to be appropriate and not preachy. How can we guide kids towards purposeful lives without imposing certain values on them (when a child, say, chooses a purpose we may feel is maladaptive)? This would have been a helpful discussion to have and his book suffers for lack of it.
But all in all, this is a very important book to read for teachers and parents. As a teacher, I would like its message to inform my future teaching, and to take time whenever possible to allow kids to reflect on what their purpose is or what they'd like it to be.
24 people found this helpful
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