The Quality School. Managing Students Without Coercion. William Glasser, M.D. I felt this book had some interesting concepts, but some of the books materials were left vague. Glasser points out several interesting ideas without explaining himself in detail. In almost every chapter he explains why we should be doing some of these things and what will be the end result, but fails to tell us how to get there. If you are going to write a book and talk about what schools need to be doing than you should be a little bit more specific in all the stuff that needs to happen in between the beginning and end of the solution. When Glasser talks about coercion in the schools starting with the lead people and trickling down to the principals with in are buildings, I feel that is true only to a certain extent. Although principals are under a lot of pressure for teachers and students to perform, I personally don't feel that burden upon my shoulders that often. I have taught for seven years in the Duluth school district and have always felt comfortable with all most all of the principals that I have worked for. If anything, they have been very supportive in my teaching endeavors. A lot of pressure that we as teachers feel is self imposed and not always the cause of forces that we cannot always control. Glasser however, sure hits home when he talks about coercion from the top when we look at the recent mishandling of teachers and students that has plagued this school district in the recent past from our recent superintendent of schools. That was simply inexcusable how matters were handled from a so called leader. Glasser's views on Discipline and motivation are correct, but I feel that students need to understand that discipline is not a bad thing. Students need to know that their is consequences for their actions and that certain behaviors will not be tolerated. The problem with Glasser's views is that some students really need simple firm rules and consequences for their actions. Ultimately we need to keep reinforcing proper behavior and finding ways to motivate them, but until students understand that they are directly responsible for their actions, and start excepting authority, he or she doesn't have a chance to succeed in this world. Maybe we as teachers need to spend more time talking about what discipline really means and stop treating it as if it's an evil entity of our society. Although I'm kind of negative sounding with some of Glasser's points, a lot of what he has to say makes sense. He is correct in the way we as teachers and society use coercion as a motivational tool. It doesn't ever seem to work in the long run and the few people that are using it as the ultimate means to the end are not very successful in the long run. I know that when I catch myself at that point, I'm truly embarrassed with myself. As far as the issue of giving grades to students, I just don't see anyway around it. We would really have to change are way of thinking in to days society. However, I do think there is way to much emphasis on measuring people in quantitative terms in which we are now doing.

-- Anonymous, March 05, 1999