Product reviews for Teaching Toward Solutions

Teaching Toward Solutions, written for teachers at any stage of their career, was initially meant for American classrooms. The spelling has not been anglicised and neither has the terminology - hence students -˜turn in' their homework and are -˜seniors' rather than sixth formers.

Some of the suggested solutions for getting difficult students on side come across as a little too sugary for the cynical British palate. An example is given of a teacher passing a disruptive student a note saying, “You remind me of a bright student I had a few years ago ... he wasn't quite sure how to show me his abilities at first, but I knew he had lots of potential. Whenever you are ready to show me, I'm here.”

But some interesting strategies are suggested for dealing with confrontational students. Examples are given of how changing tack or doing something unpredictable can often change the attitude of a challenging student and how letting the student know that the teacher is committed to solving the problem can work better than focusing on letting them know who is in charge.

Innovative ideas are presented for raising the self-esteem of low-achieving students. There are also methods suggested for a teacher to analyse their own teaching practice to get better results. The whole focus of the book is on coming up with strategies for solutions to help classes and individual students to succeed where they have failed before.