Quality School

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The Quality School

-- Anonymous, December 08, 1998

Answers

My Response to the book "The Quality School" by William Glasser.

I found the book to be very interesting. It was thought provoking to have someone point out how coercive our present system of education is. After reading a few chapters I realized that often I use coercion in my own classroom. I tend to agree with the author that the work most students do is not of the highest quality. Also I am aware that the more I try to use a boss-management style in my classroom the more frustrating it is to teach. Students aren't willing to put forth much effort as long as they see no value in the subject I am teaching. Glasser addresses the issue of selling students on why it is important for them to learn. It has to make sense to them or they will not do the work well if at all. I found helpful hints that I can use in my classroom to be more effective with less frustration. Asking students what they think can be a very enlightening experience. Students seem to be more open to putting forth an effort when they felt included in some decisions that directly affect them.

Glasser had some good reasons why it is better to be a lead-manager in the classroom. Lead-managers involve the students in determining how best to do something, giving a sense of control or ownership to those involved. If students view the teacher as an adversary they will be less likely to do quality work. He believes that most problems in education, including drop out rates, truancy, discipline, and low quality work would be greatly reduced or in most cases eliminated completely if we switch to a lead-manager style instead of the present boss-manager style. I agree that it could only help.

One point the author made was that in order to create a "Quality School" it would require a complete switch in management style from the state officials down to the school principal. There seems to be little movement in this direction in Minnesota at the present time. Glasser was not in favor of standardized testing. He also recommended giving students as much time as they needed to create quality work in order to eliminate failure. This would require more available resources to provide tutoring or other assistance to those who need extra help. I would think we would all be in favor of eliminating failure. However, no matter how you look at it, the transition to quality schools will require far more support from government and local school boards in terms of money. There also needs to be a willingness to relinquish much or all boss- management authority at all levels of education.

The book presents some alluring challenges to our present education system. I believe quality schools are worthy of further pursuit.

-- Anonymous, December 08, 1998


Good thoughts, Greg. Yes, there are an awful lot of interesting concepts brought forth by Glasser. We are in a boss-managed society, for the most part, unfortunately. I have a group of students from the "mainstream" for an 11 minute advisory every day. I have tried to get to know them on a personal basis. It is hard, given the limited time we have, but I do feel that it has helped in some instances when needing to do some minor disciplining or it's just nice to have a "mainstream" student say hi to me in the hallway! But, Glasser says that we should be friends with the students. I don't quite agree with that, do you? Do you think that MN will ever do away with state-wide testing? Maybe our new governor will!!

-- Anonymous, December 14, 1998

Greg,

I agree with much of what you said about the book. I feel that the ideas Glasser puts forth are solid but they seem to be more of an ideal than a program that would be adopted by a State. His ideas seem to me to demand a great amount of individual self-examination and I don't think it is so easy to expect that a whole school would be filled with the successes Glasser points out if all the teachers took his two week training program. I am too cynical to think that positive change is so easy. I think the best we can hope for is to look closily at ourselves and work from there, all a student needs is one good teacher to ignite their desire to learn.

-- Anonymous, December 16, 1998


Greg, you are absolutely correct in your statements about coercion. It does not work. I have discovered, and rediscovered this over the last thirty years of working with people of all ages. And this may be the most important idea any of us can take away from Glasser's book.In a society where we spend $60,000/yr on a criminal and about a tenth of that on a student, I agree that the rest of his ideas may well be beyond our reach.

-- Anonymous, January 03, 1999

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