Social psychologist Lilya Brainis about favorite books
IN BACKGROUND "BOOK SHELF" we ask heroines about their literary preferences and editions, which occupy an important place in the bookcase. Today, a social psychologist, the head of an educational project for foster children "Hut" Lilya Brainis tells about favorite books.
Before I started reading on my own, I adored listening to how others were reading — I must admit that I still love it. In the evenings, I forced my mother again and again to re-read to me “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”, imagining myself to be the Swan Princess. Apparently, the love for this story manifested itself so vividly that when I hit my forehead on the edge of the table and came to kindergarten with a huge green spot on my forehead, the teacher said: "Well, is there a star in your forehead that is burning?" I remember it really hurt me.
Then my father took to teach me to read and the first book chose "The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen". Probably, it seemed to him that this was a very children's book, but at the age of five I could not appreciate its charms. My dad quickly quit experimenting and gave me the Golden Book of Fairy Tales - I desperately fell in love with her and then began to read myself, taking new books from the shelves over and over again. When I was ten, Dad died, and books became the main way to survive his death. I read everything that happened in a row: fairy tales, books about growing up, books about overcoming. There was no strength to remain in reality, but the opportunity to turn into heroes and experience various difficulties with them gave me the opportunity to work through the pain.
At thirteen, I loved “Eugene Onegin” to death, at fifteen I sympathized with Bunin in “The Cursed Days” and dreamed to test myself in a situation of revolution and civil war, at seventeen I read “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and called LJ, Skype and the first post in honor of Remedios . And at twenty-one, thanks to the steep romance novel, she finally decided that you could, of course, be honest, consistent and follow the rules, but there is a danger of becoming the categorical head of the Zimmerman camp to death.
At university I almost stopped reading. I liked buying books more so that they stood beautifully on the shelves and represented me for me. Then there came a period when I read two or three books at a time and carried them all with me in case I wanted to read something else. The book is a transitional object, a way to cope with anxiety, and it is important that it simply be, even if I am not reading right now.
Only in the magistracy, I learned that scientific articles may have the effect of a new book - as in childhood. I still remember the first article I read. She was called "Happiness in collectivistic and individualistic societies" and spoke about the study of different ideas about happiness among American and Chinese students. At that moment I realized how many people in the world are studying an infinite amount of interesting things, and all I need is to simply find them. Since then, in any incomprehensible situation, I go to the library and look for everything that is written on a topic of interest to me: be it the measurement of learning skills, harassment, the influence of porn on sexual behavior or emotional intelligence.
The last year and a half that I have been engaged in an educational project for foster children, I read a lot of books about the characteristics of children who have suffered trauma, or how to work with complex behavior. Books continue to stand beautifully on the shelves, but now there are much more textbooks and brochures from various funds with recommendations or descriptions of the results of their work.
Recently, I got hooked on children's books - I quoted all friends of the history of Prostodursen and the River Rechnoe, for a week I read the entire series of Annicki Tor books about two refugee sisters in Sweden, cried over Waffle Heart and over “My grandfather was a cherry.” Children's books were the easiest way to return the joy of reading. As my girlfriend recently said, children's theater director Polina Struzhkova: "You can't not find a way out in a children's play, whatever chaos may be in the middle. You just can't leave this child with it. Therefore, you are looking for a way out, no matter what" . So with the books the same thing. And it absolutely suits me. I need a way out.
Lucy Maud Montgomery
"Anne Shirley Story"
I reread this book once every two years to restore hope and confidence in the world. The main character is orphan Ann, who is mistakenly brought to live with her childless brother and sister. Despite the mistake, Ann remains to live with them, then becomes a teacher, gets a bachelor's degree in Princeton, gets married and raises children. According to the description, it seems as if nothing attractive, but in fact is the most life-affirming book on earth, where muffins are baked deliciously, they visit each other, they are friends, they love and they dream.
Yuri Lotman
"Conversations about Russian culture: life and traditions of the Russian nobility"
In some of my enthusiasm, I blame the Decembrists, and with what admiration for them and their mothers described Yuri Lotman. Of course, now it is difficult to say what happened before, but the texts of Lotman, multiplied by Tynyanov and Adelman, did their job. Firstly, at the age of thirteen I understood how to live, and secondly, in the eleventh grade I naturally fell in love with the Decembrist Annenkov and spent six months studying everything I could find about him.
Karel Čapek
"Last Judgment"
I have a few favorite stories from the book "Stories from one pocket", but "Last Judgment", perhaps, the most. This is a story about how a criminal gets to the Last Judgment and finds out that it will not be God who will judge him (because God is all-knowing and all-forgiving), but earthly judges who, in turn, do not forgive anyone. So, God is a witness in his case and tells about all the bad and all the good things that made this man. And among other things, God tells you where the glass ball went - the only treasure of a six-year criminal: rolled up under the furnace. Since then, every time I lose something, I can’t get rid of the feeling that there is an all-seeing eye that now knows where this thing is, and there is a chance that some day I will know it.
David Myers
"Social Psychology"
My first immersion in social psychology, which began a lot of love. It is read not as a textbook, but as a collection of stories. I still advise this book to anyone who wants to understand the subject. First, everything is clear, and secondly, I want to read more and more. I still do not understand how this subject was not made mandatory in school. Society would be much healthier if people understood how their behavior in a group changes.
Robert Marzano
"Classroom instruction that works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement"
In 2001, an American scientist and teacher published a book in which he collected the results of several dozen educational studies (about student motivation, the role of a teacher, a school space arrangement) with a very simple idea: tell teachers what exactly works and what doesn't. Read and outlined the first year of work at the school.
Lyudmila Petranovskaya
"How do you behave? 10 steps to change difficult behavior. A guide for foster parents"
I am terribly hurt that when people talk and write about education, they rarely think about how to work with difficult behavior. Of course, I also love working with motivated and gifted children, but what to do if a child or teenager behaves aggressively, lies or steals, devalues or does not want to do anything? What if everything is tried and despair sets in? Here it is written here. Clear, clear and accessible. Love.
Ross green
"An explosive child. A new approach to the education and understanding of easily irritable, chronically intractable children"
The book about how the child thinks and feels, who arranges "tantrums", swears and cannot sit still. I used to be pissed off and scared by such children, I perceived their behavior as a conscious desire to manipulate, anger or annoy. And then I worked with them and agreed with Green, who says that the child behaves well when he can. No one wants him or her scolded and rejected. Just sometimes (often) the child does not know how differently or can not cope with himself. And Green tells how to help them with this.
Emily nagoski
"Come on! Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life"
I read about the book “Come as you are” a couple of years ago on Tatyana Nikonova’s blog. First off, this is a great blog. Secondly, it is a little insulting that I am almost thirty, and only last year I began to understand how and why everything is arranged in such a way and not otherwise.
Jean Cocteau
"Orpheus"
Very beautiful, light and transparent play about love and jealousy, about self-respect and talent, about Death, which is actually a beautiful woman in a black dress and rubber gloves, about a mirror as an entrance to the other world, about the angel Ertebiza, who pretends to be a glazier and walks with a backpack of glasses behind his back. My friend Masha Kaprara and I somehow in the second year tried to put this play with tenth-graders - nothing happened. But I wrote a term paper "The alchemical nature of poetry on the example of the work of Jean Cocteau". Here now to find the text.
Massimo montari
"Hunger and abundance. The history of nutrition in Europe"
Fascinating and exciting food story in Europe. Reflections on the food pillars of the culture (for the Mediterranean - olives, grapes and millet; for continental - meat and beer), and a variety of historical examples of how familiar products now first came to the table for Europeans. Several times used excerpts of this book in the classroom and always received the most lively response. The history of food is the real and closest story to man!