Product Review

What we as teachers were taught in our credentialing programs and what we read in books on classroom management and discipline always seems to have been written by someone teaching at Perfect School in Happy Shiny Land, USA. When I first started teaching, I watched what few classroom management tools I was taught in my credential program fail in my real-world classroom. Undaunted, I read book after book on classroom management and classroom discipline, only to have all of those tools and systems fail as well, for the same reasons; they all relied on my having generally motivated students, with relatively few “problem children,” reasonable and helpful parents, and supportive administrators. In my world, none of these were true. Out of necessity, as I continued working some very difficult, low income high schools, I developed a simple and effective classroom management system that is contained within the classroom, under the teacher's control, and only relies on administrators only as the last line of defense. I have been successfully using it for seven of the nine years that I have been a teacher, and at their request have taught it to other teachers on my campus.
Whether you work in a challenging high school classroom like mine or not, this short book (I know you have limited time and papers to grade!) will allow you to start effectively using this simple system as soon as tomorrow. This second edition is updated with a Detention Assignment step replacing a traditional detention. This simple change revolutionizes the system making it infinitely easier for teachers to use.