Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 14, 1992 TAG: 9203140218
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
A school task force has been working for months on a discipline model that meets Pulaski County's needs. The one it has settled on is based on the work of Dr. William Glasser, a California psychiatrist whose book, "The Quality School," outlines the method.
"In his book, Dr. Glasser takes a close look at students' lack of achievement and lack of motivation to learn and work in the classroom," guidance counselor Joyce P. Owen said. "He then proceeds to explain how the control theory can be applied in the classroom setting as a solution to the apathy now touching so many schools in our nation."
Owen said the model uses approaches proven successful elsewhere and adapts them to academics.
Glasser calls his process "control theory," but it controls student behavior not by coercion but by persuading students that their school work is of sufficient quality to be worthwhile to them.
"Once they have this experience, which for almost all students is a totally new one, they will find it highly satisfying," Glasser wrote in an article adapted from his book. "They will no more turn down the chance to continue doing this kind of work than does the well-managed factory worker."
Glasser maintains that "our schools have been primarily concerned with trying to get more students to do enough work to reach the low standard of quality required for high school graduation."
Administrators tend to reward teachers for not making waves rather than teaching, he asserts.
"If they . . . challenge students to think and defend their ideas, the students will have a chance to learn something worthwhile. But, since the students may not do well on the tests that measure fragments, such teachers will be labeled as troublemakers and failures," Glasser says.
"On the other hand, if they teach the way they are told to teach, the students will fail to learn anything that the students believe is worthwhile. But their teachers will be praised as successful team players, and the students will be blamed as incompetent."
One of his recommendations is teaching students in cooperative groups. He says students tend to see extracurricular activities as more important because they enjoy working with others and getting feedback, while class work isolates them.
"As difficult as this assertion is for most teachers to believe, I contend that the continuing drop in student performance is caused by the fact that our traditional system of managing students sends the clear message that low-quality work is acceptable," Glasser says.
"Probably less than 15 percent of our students do high-quality academic work in school, and even many of that group do far less than they are capable of doing," he says.
Pulaski County school administrators will learn Glasser's control theory model this summer, with teachers starting it next fall and winter. The teacher training will extend over three academic years through mid-1996.
"The major complaint we all had as students was not that the work was too hard but that it was boring," Glasser says in his article, which was distributed to the School Board. "By `boring' we usually meant that we could not connect what we were asked to do with its usefulness in our lives."
He said the study pointing out national education weaknesses, "A Nation at Risk," said nothing about how teachers manage students.
"That report claimed that we needed a longer school day and year, stiffer graduation requirements, and more homework - all coercive practices," he says.
"Another factor that makes effective teaching in the U.S. much harder than it is in other countries is that we do not have the strong cultural support of education," Glasser says. "Even most of our colleges receive far more publicity for athletics than academics."
by CNB