Being Good: Rethinking Classroom Management and Student Discipline

By Steven Wolk

There's a certain irony that adults are clamoring for character education in our classrooms when they themselves bear responsibility for actions ranging from war, pollution, and racist speech to failing to use their turn signal. The increasing emphasis of civic leaders and policymakers on teaching for character and morality has a familiar but subtle undertone: kids these days are out of control. The issues of character and discipline, of encouraging good behavior and improving bad behavior, writes Steven Wolk, are "woven together like a double-helix strand of DNA."

Fortunately, in Being Good Wolk helps you decode the issues of character and discipline by offering practical ideas and research-driven theories that not only promote democratic values in your teaching but also show you how to use those values when your classroom management skills are tested. Wolk gives you examples of how practicing teachers evaluate and remedy "bad" behavior in ways that promote citizenship, encourage self-discipline, and motivate students toward learning and self-betterment. Plus he shows you how to prevent bad behavior by establishing a shared value system in your classroom that encourages students to monitor their own behavior.

From integrating character and curriculum to engage critical literacy skills, to designing seating plans for your students that encourage cooperation and positive interaction, Being Good shows you how the powerful connections between character, content, and classroom structure shape the individual emerging inside each of your students. So let the politicians outside your classroom talk about how "bad" kids are these days. With Steven Wolk on your side, you'll prove them wrong.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0325004269
• ISBN13: 9780325004266
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.6" x 8.5"
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 8

Customer Reviews

How the children will save us and how to help them on their way

Dr. Wolk defines the parameters of a humane classroom which pursues rigorous intellectual creativity. It is based on the idea that only the individual knows what they need to learn next on their academic journey and the class as community is a tool to get them there. Dr. Wolk's belief is that teachers should free the natural intellectual curiosity of the child and facilitate purposeful authentic projects toward goals defined on the way. It is the same powerful enlightened thinking which the founding fathers believed; that the free individual working for the common good gives strength to the one nation. "E pluribus unum" Strong stuff to empower strong kids--will probably scare the drill and test crowd who run educational systems. If you are a teacher that longs to explore new methods for igniting your uninterested and uninteresting students here is a place to start.