Getting The Buggers To Think

Buggers

by Sue Cowley

Cowley, the author of Getting the Buggers to Behave and the Guerrilla Guide to Teaching, gives teachers practical strategies to develop skills in their students from the primary through the secondary levels. She includes techniques to improve concentration, behavior and learning, to build thinking activities into lessons, to structure thinking through sequencing and in groups, to develop memory, critical and creative thinking, and to discuss complex ideas. As she notes in her closing paragraphs, Cowley believes that when thinking is taught well, learning becomes a wonderful and thrilling experience, presumably for the teachers as well as the buggers. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Genres: Nonfiction, Education, Teaching

Hardcover

First published December 11, 2003

About the author

Sue Cowley is an experienced teacher, writer and presenter, whose specialism is in the area of behaviour management. After qualifying as a primary school teacher, she taught in a number of different secondary schools in London and Bristol. Sue has also taught overseas, at an international school in Portugal. She still works on a voluntary basis with children in local schools, to ensure that she keeps up to date with life 'at the chalkface'. Sue was recently called as an Expert Witness on behaviour, to appear in front of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education.

Sue is the best selling author of twenty books for teachers and parents, including Getting the Buggers to Behave, Teaching Skills for Dummies and How to Survive your First Year in Teaching. Her books have been translated into many different languages, including Slovene, Spanish and Polish. Sue has been a regular contributor to the TES and for Scholastic Magazines. She has written articles for a range of other teacher publications, and also for parenting magazines. She has also produced materials about behaviour management for the Open University / BBC. Sue has recently created a series of Positive Behaviour Management DVDs, in conjunction with educational company Creative Education.

A key part of Sue’s work is in providing training in positive behaviour management for schools and colleges around the UK and in Europe. She has given presentations for the National Union of Teachers and the General Teaching Council, for FastTrack and Advanced Skills’ teachers, to students at Cambridge, Bedford and Southampton Universities, to staff at the renowned Wellington College, and also to a number of deputy and head teacher conferences. Sue has also travelled to Europe to give training for teachers working for Service Children's Education, to teachers at international schools in Switzerland, and to teachers and trainee teachers in Slovenia. She combines her writing, training and presenting work with the wonderful job of being a parent.

Sue’s primary aim through her work is to give practical, realistic and honest advice to teachers and parents. Her books offer a combination of tips, ideas and strategies, written in an easily accessible and amusing way. Through the training courses that she runs, Sue puts across her ideas about teaching and behaviour management in a fun and engaging format.

Reviews

[Emma Linley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forgot how *on the nail* this is , despite the dubious title ( non of my tutees are buggers )

[Shifting Phases · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is helpful and well organized. The table of contents includes items such as "What is concentration?" "Why do some children find it hard to concentrate?" and "Exercises for concentration." The suggestions are concrete and usable, although probably more appropriate for elementary school than other age groups.

The section on critical thinking includes logical and creative approaches without trying to categorize them rigidly. The definition of critical thinking is well elaborated and thought provoking, including things like proposing, connecting, solving, and supporting. I've seen this information classified more thoroughly (see the Foundation for Critical Thinking), but this exploration was also quite understandable. The author also includes some silly but nontrivial examples of logical fallacies that could be helpful in stimulating discussion.

There's also an interesting section on evaluative thinking. The author gives suggestions for structuring and scaffolding evaluations, such as " find three good points about the work," giving students a rubric, modeling evaluative questions(Does it make sense? Is it well written? Does it appeal to the audience it's aimed at?) or passing around work from another grade level. (p. 139)

The ideas are broad enough to incorporate in a wide variety of subjects. The author is British, so some of the references are to British curriculum standards, but any teacher could find something to like in here.

[Rose]

Quite a bit of this is difficult to apply at primary level, but the book did contain some useful and stimulating ideas.

[Frank Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reviewed this on my blog http://thinkersandthinking.com/?p=29