Just Finished Reading Love and Logic

[Peregrin5]

I really like the ideas in it, but the book is rather tough to really put into practice. The ideas are really spread out through the book, and there are few practical applications that really describe what to do in each situation. I would really like a study guide or other type of thing that will help me really put this book into practice.

[readingrules12]

I am reading the book right now. I like most of it. Overall, it is very good.

There are 2 things that I think are exceptional.

1. His emphasis on giving students choices. That can really work well for individual students who feel a lack of control.

2. The way he shows how to communicate with students. Lots of great examples of how to use this in the book.

Any favorites for you Peregrin 5?

[mrachelle87]

I watched the videos that went with the book.

[bison]

I feel like a lot of teaching books are like this. They spread out a few simple ideas into an entire book that ends up being very repetitive and hard to translate into concrete plans. I'm reading Tools for Teaching right now and while I love the content, I can't stand the writing style. I feel like he spends the first half just talking about how it's a good idea to implement the strategies in the book. It could probably be cut down to 1/3 of the size and still convey the same ideas.

Anyway, to the the useful part of my comment. I did some googling around and I found a powerpoint that goes along with my book. It's meant to be used in PD settings. I bet Love and Logic has PD materials that you can get your hands on too. Maybe not in the form of a powerpoint, but something that will sum up the ideas and maybe give you ideas to implement them.

Edit: I found one. I'll PM it to you.

[readingrules12]

That would be great if you could PM it to me. Thank you. :-)

[Peregrin5]

Thanks bison!

As for my favorite parts:

I really like the part that stresses providing consequences with empathy.

I like the part that talks about it being okay to delay the consequences. I never knew that before reading this book.

And I really like the part of having the student choose their consequences.

I think that this book could be put to use better once I have a more concrete base of classroom management to work from however. Right now if I don't have clear consequences and can command respect from my students, they will not choose their consequences or give me "You're the teacher, do what you want."

It's a lot more thinking, because you have to have consequences present in those cases. I definitely want to put it into practice, but I think I'll wait till next year, and even then probably mid-year.

Some things I can implement immediately like offering more choices, though even that I think I'm going to wait until next year because I'm just now creating the curriculum for everyone, and it's too early for me to be thinking of providing whole new tasks for other students to do and having to be able to monitor both of them.

Also Fred Jones has a study guide that's great and really explicitly shows you how to use the techniques. I'll send it to you Bison.