News and views from the Are you an overachiever?
The stars are in alignment. I had put a new book on my desk to blog about -- The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids, by Alexandra Robbins (305.2350973 R534o) -- only to discover that Andrea just wrote an article for the Online Gargoyle about this very same topic and links to the book's web page. Robbins is a journalist who went back to her high school and shadowed nine students to get a better understanding of the pressures they experience. The book is fast-paced, punctuated by section headings that name each student and label how each one is perceived. So, there's AP Frank, College Freshman, Perceived as: The Workhorse; Julie, Senior, Perceived as: The Superstar; C.J., Junior, Perceived as: The Flirt. And so on.
It's no secret that we've got plenty of overachievers in this school. I often find myself wanting to tell someone to relax, to chill out, to getsomeperspective for gosh sakes. I guess that Alexandra Robbins is an overachiever herself. Besides the web page, she's got a MySpace page just for the book.
It's no secret that we've got plenty of overachievers in this school. I often find myself wanting to tell someone to relax, to chill out, to getsomeperspective for gosh sakes. I guess that Alexandra Robbins is an overachiever herself. Besides the web page, she's got a MySpace page just for the book.
1 Comments:
Wow, what a coincidence! I highly recommend "The Overachievers." Alexandra Robbins spent a year hanging around overachieving students at her alma mater, Walt Whitman H.S. in Maryland. Uni's journalism students read the book this fall. We devoted each Thursday to discussing the assigned weekly chapters. The discussions were terrific -- the students really got into it.
David Porreca, Gargoyle adviser
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