“Instead of tribes or families, we need to bring up our children to identify with humanity itself…We now need to emphasize a diverse basic education that fosters individual curiosity, where both the arts and the sciences can provide a platform for creative ways of looking at problems and coming up with solutions that would encourage an openness to our innate intuitive capacities and allow them to develop and be experienced naturally.”
–Robert Ornstein
ISHK’s education programs bring the growing body of knowledge about the evolution and potential of the human mind to bear in solving the complex issues facing humanity today. Education at all levels now needs to include teaching about the nature and potential of the person being taught. Fostering this new, more expansive view of education and presenting practical solutions for learners of all ages underlies all of ISHK’s programs. ISHK’s Hoopoe Books imprint and literacy programs address the two key development opportunities: the first five years of life, and the second growth spurt that happens during adolescence and young adulthood (age 12-25). The Malor imprint and Human Journey projects address the ongoing education and development opportunities for high school and college students and the older generation. ISHK’s CE@Home program allows licensed psychologists to earn CE credit for reading important books in their field.
Hoopoe Books / Share Literacy
Based on the Hoopoe Books series of Sufi Teaching-Stories written for children by Idries Shah, ISHK’s Share Literacy program offers a comprehensive educational resource for children, parents and teachers. Drawn from the world of oral and written storytelling from a time before societies had formal schools, stories such as these were the way in which everyone learned the much-needed universal lessons of tolerance and appreciation of all cultures. Presented in the characters, plots, and imagery are patterns and relationships that activate the area of the brain that provides “context,” the essential function of putting together different components of experience. The Sufis have been using these carefully constructed stories for thousands of years as a means of stimulating and stabilizing an expanded consciousness.
The beautifully illustrated Hoopoe Books have been commended by educators and psychologists, the Library of Congress, National Public Radio and other media. Available in seven languages, including seven bilingual editions, they serve both school-age children and ESL adults. Supportive materials aligned to national and state education standards are available in English and Spanish to help parents and teachers use the latest skills and strategies for developing high level thinking skills, including critical and analogical thought, and social-emotional development.
Through its literacy and outreach program, ISHK provides educational support to underserved children in the US, Canada, Pakistan and refugee camps around the world.
Hoopoe Books
Share Literacy
Hoopoe/Share Outreach Program
Books for Afghanistan
Books for Pakistan
Books for Refugees
The Human Journey
Thanks to the internet, we can now access an astonishing amount of scientific, archeological, historical and neuroscientific information in a few seconds. Unfortunately, the same technology brings more to distract and misinform. The result is a culture expanded drastically in reach, but often drastically reduced in scope and thought.
ISHK’s Human Journey website was founded as a crucial educational resource to foster the positive potential of the digital world in advancing human development. The website pulls from the best work of leading anthropologists, neurobiologists, psychologists, historians, philosophers, and others to follow the 500,000-year journey of the human mind. Begin with a review of our hominid ancestors – how we, our cultures, beliefs and societies evolved, what our priorities were and why, and how they led to the world we live in today. Examine the development and roles of religion, technology, education, economics and international aid against the background of a constantly changing climate. Then explore the ways we might leverage the increased understanding to make better decisions, direct our own evolution, and create a sustainable human future.
The Human Journey
Discovering Our Distant Ancestors | The Evolution of Language | Ideas That Shaped Our Modern World | Tools and the Development of Contemporary Society | A Sustainable Planet | The Changing World Economy | Health and Education in the Modern World |Intercultural Understanding and Empathy
ISHK’s acclaimed CE@Home program has provided thousands of psychologists the opportunity to earn continuing education credit for reading and passing tests on the most important books in their fields. Approved by the American Psychological Association to provide continuing education for psychologists, ISHK offers online tests for more than 400 books, both classic and recent published works, by top names in their fields:
Dan Ariely • Aron Beck • Robin Dunbar • Paul Ekman • Malcom Gladwell • Daniel Goleman • John M. Gottman • Jonathan Haidt • Ellen Langer • Robert Ornstein • James W. Pennebaker • Esther Perel • Steven Pinker • Oliver Sacks • Martin Seligman • Steve Silberman • Philip Zimbardo • and many others
Shop the library of more than 400 titles in 23 categories:
ISHK CE@Home for Psychologists
“This was the best training and most comprehensive study on a topic that I have ever received in 30 years of practice.”
Brenda Rambo, Ed.D., on Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
“ISHK has a SUPERB complement of coursework!!!”
Kate Burkhardt, Ph.D.
The Magic of Reading
WATCH: This informative and entertaining video on the value of reading teaching-stories to children includes a presentation of the beautiful children’s teaching-story, The Boy Without a Name.
Books for Pakistan
“By educating girls we are not only eradicating the secondary place of women in our society, and bringing them up to par with men, but also ensuring the advancement and modernization of our total society. An educated mother has it in her power to change the very culture of the most basic social unit – the family.”
Mrs. Basarat Kazim
IBBY Vice President
Founder and President
Alif Laila Book Bus Society
Educating Young Adults
“Open During Remodeling”
The All About Me series of books for adolescents is based on the latest research into the developing brain. Designed to help adolescents navigate their “second growth spurt” – what’s going on with what they see, think and feel; how their new abilities work; how they change grow or get stuck; and how reliable they are as they try to make sense of themselves, their friends and relatives, and the world around them.
The Human Journey: Education for a Changing World
Education’s primary goal is to prepare young people for success in adult life. Our mid-21st century world has seen changes that no one would have envisaged even twenty years ago. The Human Journey website tackles the status and challenges for our contemporary system of education, highlighting how we must respond to provide what students need.
Timely Books to Read at Home for CE Credit
