Kimberly Hatch Harrison (co-founder of Socratica) hosts this podcast that celebrates the joys of reading. In creating a new illustrated audiobook series for our kids’ channel, Socratica Kids, Kim is revisiting some of her favourite coming-of-age stories that inspired her. In this episode, Kim discusses “The Book of Three” by Lloyd Alexander.

If you would like your own copy of the book discussed, it is available here:

https://amzn.to/3RymWGR

If you prefer, you can buy a boxed set of the first five books of the Chronicles of Prydain:

https://amzn.to/42N6706

Kim’s book: How to Be a Great Student

ebook: https://amzn.to/2Lh3XSP

Paperback: https://amzn.to/3t5jeH3

Kindle Unlimited: https://amzn.to/3atr8TJ

If you'd like to talk about this podcast (and all things Socratica), you can join our Discord by becoming our Patron on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/socratica

Socratica Reads is sponsored by The Socratica Foundation as part of their Literacy Campaign.

You can learn more about this educational nonprofit at https://www.socratica.org

Support this work: https://socratica.kindful.com

Transcript:

Welcome Everybody! To Socratica Reads. My name is Kimberly Hatch Harrison, and I’m the co-founder of Socratica. We make educational videos, mainly about STEM topics, and mainly on YouTube, and we create other educational materials you can find on our website, socratica.com.

None of this work would be possible, if I hadn’t grown up to be a reader. My mum read to me at a very young age, and she wasn’t deliberately teaching me to read, but I sort of caught on and taught myself. This happens sometimes, for some kids.

Turns out I’m hyperlexic, and I’m just naturally drawn to the written word. If there are words on a box of cereal, I’m reading it. I want subtitles on my movies. I walk down the streets of a foreign city translating all the street signs. It’s just how I go through life, reading, reading, always reading.

This is not a neutral pursuit. After you read enough, your brain naturally starts synthesizing and integrating, and drawing some meta conclusions from everything you’ve fed in. It’s made everything about my life and my work possible.

That’s why I am determined to help other people FIND their way to the book life. The joy and the POWER of literacy is literally life-changing.

So where do I do this literacy promotion? Well, I’m also the co-founder of the Socratica Foundation, which is an educational non-profit.

One Socratica Foundation project I’m currently working on is an English Language Arts video series called Astrid’s Journal. It’s on our kids’ channel, Socratica Kids, and it’s especially intended for grades 3-5. This is a journal kept by a girl who is about 10 years old, in the year 2525, in a place called Scandiland. In this world, kids experience a very different kind of childhood. We learn about this world through Astrid’s eyes.

Along the way, in addition to...

Kimberly Hatch Harrison (co-founder of Socratica) hosts this podcast that celebrates the joys of reading. For the start of spooky season, we are turning to the theme of Dark Academia. In this episode, Kim discusses the book “Down a Dark Hall” by Lois Duncan.

If you would like your own copy of the book discussed, it is available here:

https://amzn.to/4f5zyPv

Kim’s book: How to Be a Great Student

ebook: https://amzn.to/2Lh3XSP

Paperback: https://amzn.to/3t5jeH3

Kindle Unlimited: https://amzn.to/3atr8TJ

Sign up for Socratica Dialogue (Newsletter)

https://snu.socratica.com/join

If you'd like to talk about this podcast (and all things Socratica), you can join our Discord by becoming our Patron on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/socratica

Socratica Reads is sponsored by The Socratica Foundation as part of their Literacy Campaign.

You can learn more about this educational nonprofit at https://www.socratica.org

Support this work: https://socratica.kindful.com

Transcript:

Welcome Everybody! To Socratica Reads. My name is Kimberly Hatch Harrison, and I’m the co-founder of Socratica. We reach a fairly specific audience with our YouTube channel, which focuses on advanced math, science, and computer programming. Our audience is spread all over the world, and while we may not all be studying the same things, or in the same professions, the one thing we all share is a love of learning.

In case you don’t know, I wrote a book called How to Be a Great Student, which is the true story of how I figured out the academic life, making LOTS of mistakes along the way. I was always VERY bright, but not always VERY disciplined as a student, because I didn’t have to be. For the longest time, I could just coast through. But we all reach a point where we find our limit, and have to actually DO the work. In my book I explain the various techniques I learned that mean success in academia. I’ll include a link in the show notes in case you’d like to get your own copy.

It’s Autumn here in the northern hemisphere, everyone has gone back to school, and it’s also the start of spooky season. Today is Hallowe’en, tomorrow is the start of Dia de los Muertos. All that adds up to a theme I’d like to introduce into the Socratica Reads podcast: DARK ACADEMIA. We’ve mainly been reading science fiction together, and by now that may seem like the theme of the podcast as a whole, but it’s actually the books that influence us, that inspire us in our work. Science fiction is a helpful thing to read because it keeps you looking ahead, wondering about what will happen, what are the consequences of your scientific investigations or your cutting edge engineering project.

Dark Academia is another theme that has particular appeal for our people, friends of Socratica, or as we call them, Socratica Friends. We are a community of people who love learning. We love the autumn because it means Back to School. We love sharpened pencils and fountain pens and Japanese ballpoint pens and notebooks and...

Kimberly Hatch Harrison (co-founder of Socratica) hosts this podcast that celebrates the joys of reading. In this episode, Kim discusses the book “Stir of Echoes” by Richard Matheson. Matheson is maybe best known for penning several books that were later made into thrilling movies, as well as some timeless Twilight Zone episodes.

If you would like your own copy of the books discussed, they are available here:

Remembrance (collected letters of Ray Bradbury)

https://amzn.to/3SYKjcZ

A Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson

https://amzn.to/3TVagf6

Neuro Transmissions video about Hypnotism:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMQ9mCadSzM

Kim’s book: How to Be a Great Student

ebook: https://amzn.to/2Lh3XSP

Paperback: https://amzn.to/3t5jeH3

Kindle Unlimited: https://amzn.to/3atr8TJ

Sign up for Socratica Dialogue (Newsletter)

https://snu.socratica.com/join

If you'd like to talk about this podcast (and all things Socratica), you can join our Discord by becoming our Patron on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/socratica

Socratica Reads is sponsored by The Socratica Foundation as part of their Literacy Campaign.

You can learn more about this educational nonprofit at https://www.socratica.org

Support this work: https://socratica.kindful.com

Transcript:

Welcome Everybody! To Socratica Reads. My name is Kimberly Hatch Harrison, and I’m the co-founder of Socratica. We are known mostly for our YouTube channel, where we teach college-level STEM topics, as well as how to be a great student. We have quite a number of other projects—an educational nonprofit called The Socratica Foundation, a channel for the youngest learners, Socratica Kids, and more recently we started Socratica High.

These are all obviously connected to each other in terms of education. A bright line of curiosity and learning links these experiences you had from way back when you’re a kid. Remember back then, what that’s like? You can’t get enough about dinosaurs or space. This enthusiasm can carry you a long way when you’re a kid. But you might come back to Earth hard, and land awkwardly in high school where it’s a lot more work, and very often you have to learn something even if you’re not ready, or you don’t see the point.

There’s a little bit of a disconnect then between our high school channel and our main “grownup” channel, Socratica. For the most part, people who are watching Socratica LOVE STEM. They love math, they love computer science, they love biology, chemistry, physics, all of that good stuff. So there’s a kind of survivor bias. We see all the people who survived algebra. Survived their brushes with rough classes where they were in over their head, or dull classes where they were bored, or you know, sometimes you don’t get to study what you’re REALLY interested in until you get to college. Like let’s say...