Response to Glasser's Book: The Quality School

I liked much of what I read in Glasser's book; I wonder, however, if some things he mentions are just personal theories of his, without any scientific or experimental validity.

Glasser says the two main components of a Quality School are the elimination of coercion and the practice of student self-evaluation. He thinks that instead of coercion, we need to help students see that education is need-satisfying. The five needs he says that are programmed into our genetic code are survival, love, power, fun, and freedom. I don't think that I've previously heard that these are the 5 basic needs -- and here I wonder if this is just his opinion. He also feels that we need to sell our students on the course of study -- like a salesman showing why life will be much better if we buy his product. I think this is valid; but, often we would be somewhat hard pressed to come up with a sales pitch for our courses. However, it is something we should be responsible for -- and for knowing how our subject matter can be utilized in life after high school.

When Glasser mentions quality work and the need to have pictures of school and school work existing in students' quality worlds (in their heads), I am reminded of substituting in Band at Central High School. There the band director had the students close their eyes and envision various things -- like playing beautifully, phrasing musically, having lovely tones, etc. After this meditative interlude, they played the song. I'm quite sure the result was far superior to what it would have been without the "visioning"and reflection. Similar results come from just hearing a lovely rendition of a piece we might be working on -- by having the artistic "picture" floating around in our heads, our own performance is elevated. I think we can help students, no matter what the subject matter, to value their work, and to do quality work; but, as Glasser says, they have to see examples of quality work, and understand how it will positively impact their lives. I especially like the idea of having students self-evaluate their work. Again, they first need to have examples of quality and knowledge of the components of quality work before they can evaluate their own products.

Sometimes I think the folks who wrote the packages for the high standards, at least the checklists, must be Glasser afficionados. The "quality indicators" found in each item on the checklists hark back to this self-evaluation of quality.

He mentions "total behavior," and its four components: action, thinking, feeling, physiology. Actions and thinking are the parts we can consciously change; feelings and physiology will follow. With misbehaving students, he says, concentrate on the actions & thinking -- they and we have no control over the feelings and physiology, but they will improve if the actions & thinking do.

I have a little trouble with all A's and B's -- the Lake Wobegon effect. I don't think grades should be punitive, either; and I realize that he thinks that once quality work is understood and achieved, there will be no "average" -- or less -- work.

He says that if teachers were friendly, few students would leave school. Again, I wonder. There are so many reasons that students leave school -- peer problems, huge numbers of people, introversion, depression, chemical problems. While friendly teachers would help, given the class size and work load of most teachers, how friendly can they be?

Finally, he says that present schools teach too much, too fast. One of the criticisms of American schools made by the Third International Math & Science Study is that we teach the same stuff (in math) over and over again, particularly in middle school years. We are urged to have a fast-paced delivery, to be more rigorous, not to review endlessly. This seems in stark contrast to Glasser's comment. Then again, TIMSS says that our math curriculum is a "mile wide and an inch deep."

He says that most students concentrate on getting through rather than on learning what was covered. I'm working on ways to help students reflect on & evaluate the quality of their work and learning.

-- Anonymous, December 15, 1998

Answers

Christine, I enjoyed you comments on "The Quality School". I too question the validity of Glasser's theories. I agree with many of the key components (lead management, self evaluation, and choice theory) of a quality school, but also question the feasibility. You touched quite a bit on self evaluation and this is something I want to work on more. I would like to spend more time showing students samples of work. Many students never see any other work but their own. You also mentioned how Glasser feels we need to sell our course of study. This seems to fall under choice theory and whether or not we are meeting students needs. The one good piece of information I took from this, is that as teachers we need to tell students the relevance of what we teach and how they can benefit from it. As you know, in math one of the most common questions is "When am I ever going to use this?". That is also the question I asked when I finished reading "The Quality School". However, I do believe these is a place for some of Glasser's theories.

-- Anonymous, January 21, 1999