A Review of William Glasser's The Quality School Teacher

by Ned Ide, Conval High School, Peterborough, NH

What Glasser sets out to establish with this companion piece to The Quality School is nothing short of radical. The book is written for those of us who want to give up "boss-managing" in the classroom and around the school in favor of 'lead-managing." Glasser also explains that only through non-coercive and warm relationships with our students can we elevate their work to competence (B) and eventually to quality (A). Finally, Glasser bludgeons some of our educational sacred cows with cogent, rational arguments against rote memorization and teacher-centered classrooms.

I've provided a synopsis of the first chapters of this essential book:

Chapter One- Quality School Teachers Always Lead, They Never Boss
The students take ownership of the school. By this, Glasser suggests that nothing will be forced upon them, that teachers and students will work together to decide what is useful to learn, and that all will work to solve the school's problems because if it is their school, the problems are theirs. Teachers will hard to prevent students from turning school problems over to administrators, as they are used to doing. Glasser also suggests more circles in the classrooms and fewer rows.

Chapter Two - The Quality School Teacher Is A Professional
The fundamental assertion is one that demands that we are hired as professionals, and we should be expected to act accordingly. The most important difference between professionals and nonprofessionals is that professionals are interested in quality. The work they do themselves is quality. The work they expect of all students is quality, and the job is never done until all of their students expect and do quality work.

Chapter Three - The Six Conditions of Quality
The Quality School holds that all human beings have five basic needs: love, power, freedom, fun, and survival. With this said, the six conditions of quality schoolwork are as follows.

There must be a warm, supportive classroom environment.
Students should be asked to do only useful work.
Students are always asked to do the best they can do.
Students are asked to evaluate their own work and improve it.
Quality work always feels good.
Quality work is never destructive.

Chapter Four - Your Students Need To Know and Like You
The axiom of "lead-management" is the better we know someone and the more we like about what we know, the harder we will work for that person. We will work hard for those we care for (belonging), for those we respect and who respect us (power), for those with whom we laugh (fun), for those who allow us to think and act for ourselves (freedom), and for those who help us to make our life secure (survival).

Chapter Five - Quality School Teachers Teach Useful Skills
Skills versus information: skills are what you use; information is what you know. Life skills learned in the classroom are almost always useful. Information is useful only if students see its value or if you can convince them that committing it to memory has value. Quality information is information that directly relates to a life skill, information that students express a desire to learn, information that the teacher believes is especially useful, and information required for college. The skills deemed essential by Glasser are reading, writing, calculating and math, speaking and problem-solving.