مدرسه کیفی

by William Glasser, علی صاحبی (Translator)

The renowned author of "Reality Therapy" argues that we can save our schools only by radically retooling the way we teach.

Genres: Education, Teaching, Nonfiction, Psychology, Leadership, School, Professional Development

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[sAmAnE · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب با نگاهی به وظایف یک مدیر راهبر، در جهت داشتن محیط کاری دلپذیر، خلاق و کارآمد؛ به معرفی و شرح وظایف یک معلم راهبر می‌رسد. بعضی راهکارها بسیار کارآمد بودند و برخی بنا به شرایط فرهنگی و محیطی ناکارآمد. در کل کتاب خوبی هم برای مدیران و هم معلمان می‌باشد.

[Fateme Ahmadi · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتاب رو با ترجمه‌ی دکتر آسیه شریعتمدار خوندم. ترجمه‌ی بدی نیست ولی احتمالا باید ترجمه‌ی صاحبی رو هم یه نگاه بندازم که بتونم بگم کدوم ترجمه روان‌تر بود.
کتاب در مورد تغییر مدیریت در مدارسه.و اینکه ما باید مدیریت هدایتگرانه رو به جای مدیریت رئیس‌مآبانه! جایگزین کنیم.
در مورد منظور نویسنده از کیفیت و کار کیفی توضیحات یه جورایی مبهم بود
با اینکه به قول نویسنده کیفیت هرجا که باشه ما می‌تونیم اون رو تشخیص بدیم، به نظرم به عنوان یک کتاب راهنما برای مدارس کیفی، باید شفافیت بیشتری در توضیح مفاهیم و اجرای مراحل می‌داشت.
رفرنس و پاورقی توی کتاب ندیدم و نمیتونم بگم نبودش کار نویسنده‌ست یا مترجم. در طول کتاب هم به یه فیلم خیلی ارجاع میده اما نه به سال ساخت اشاره میشه نه کارگردان و نه اسم انگلیسی اون در پاورقی میاد. این یکی واقعا رو اعصاب بود :دی
امتیاز ۳.۵

[Mahmoud · Rating 3 out of 5]

مدارس کیفی در فراهم ساختن محیط آموزشی شاد و پویا که در آن معلمان و دانش‌آموزان با هم رابطة رضایتمندی دارند و هر دو از انجام کار کیفی لذت می‌برند و احساس ارزشمندی می‌کنند، برای گلسر توفیقی آموزشی و تربیتی محسوب می‌شود.
گلسر این کتاب را برای فراهم ساختن چارچوب نظری برای معلمان و برنامه‌ریزان مدارس نوشته است. وی هدف از نوشتن این کتاب ارائة یک چارچوب راهنما برای چگونگی مدیریت دانش‌آموزان است تا با آن‌ها به‌گونه‌ای رفتار شود که بیشترشان بتوانند و بخواهند در کلاس کاری کیفی انجام دهند. باید بپذیریم که غیر از «کار کیفی» هیچ چیز دیگری نمی‌تواند به مشکلات ما در مدارس پایان دهد.
گلسر بر این باور است که: «نوجوانانی که در مدارس کیفی تحصیل می‌کنند، درگیر رفتارهای خودتخریبگر نخواهند شد و سرمایة جامعة خود محسوب می‌شوند.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

The main message presented in this book, the backbone of Glasser's compassionate educational philosophy, is quite possibly the most important boiled-down concept in teaching. Unfortunately, it sometimes feels a little Utopian and idealistic, leaving the reader wondering how on Earth it could ever be implemented on a large scale, but only because the ingrained culture of education in America is so counter to it. Regardless, the book, its message, and Glasser's obvious humanistic values transcend the negative feedback-loop limitations of current educational practices, and offer a new way home, back to the very essence of a school's (teacher's) role in the lives of its students - inspiring/motivating/expecting/guiding students to do their best, highest quality work.

[Beckysue · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sub-title of this book is "Managing Students without Coercion", which should be enough inspire you to pick up this book. I have begun making a list of the things I want to try to do with my children at home, as well as with the children in my Commonwealth School, because I am so inspired by the concept of creating conditions that meet the needs of the children so that they are willing to do really high-quality work--to work hard at their education. What a great book for all those who practice Thomas Jefferson Education, and need some help with the principle of "Inspire, not Require".

[Fateme · Rating 4 out of 5]

طبق گفته گلاسر اگر مدرسه و معلم در دنیای مطلوب دانش اموزان قرار بگیرد بازده و کارایی آنها دو چندان میشود. دنیای مطلوب مجموعه ای از تصاویر چیز های خوشایند است.هر چه که پنج نیاز اساسی ما یعنی حفظ بقا ،عشق و احساس تعلق،قدرت،تفریح و آزادی را براوده کند جزئی از این دنیاست.
اینکه معلم در دنیای مطلوب دانش آموز باشد یک هنر است و نیازمند یک سری بستر ها که در کتاب مفصلا بررسی شده است.

[Steve Reifman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that introduced me to the pioneering work of management expert W. Edwards Deming at the beginning of my career and sparked my interest in Quality Theory. Glasser applies to the classroom the philosophical approach that Deming used so successfully to help the Japanese rebuild their industrial base following World War II. Specifically, Glasser describes how educators can manage students in a non-coercive way that will empower children to produce quality work, improve continuously, experience joy, and take pride in their learning.

[Eric Holmlund · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Quality School was recommended to me by Paul Koenig. Paul is at instructional coach at North View, and he mentioned the book as we were discussing the joy of successful teaching. TQS has been a game changer for my pedagogy and a cornerstone of my teaching philosophy. I look forward to inspiring students by helping them identify the quality they are capable of producing. As TQS explains, this will lead them placing school in their quality worlds and meeting basic needs through success in the classroom. I would recommend this book to all teachers.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the modern push toward standardization in education, fueled further by the No Child Left Behind legislation, it seems fitting –if not terribly desirable– that students be compared with workers and school with a factory. Dr. William Glasser, however, turns that analogy against those who would unwisely use it. In his thought-provoking volume on choice theory, The Quality School, Glasser uses as a point of departure the success obtained by Dr. W. Edwards Deming as he endeavored to transform post-bellum Japan into the economic giant it became in the eighties and nineties. Deming’s vision was singular: cease to coerce workers; instead, give them a reason to want to produce quality products. Glasser suggests that most of the problems plaguing modern schools stem from coercive methods of management, both at the classroom and at the supervisory level. A move away from this defunct model toward a Demingesque “quality school” is, on Glasser’s view, the only answer.

Glasser spends considerable space in the book expounding on choice theory, the keystone of a quality school. This view of human motivation argues that all human beings have five basic needs innately programmed into them: survival, love, power, fun and freedom. While this list assuredly echoes theories concerning affective needs, Glasser differs from other theorists by insisting that only these needs control our behavior. No external force can move us to do something we do not choose to do. We are experiencing as a result, he contends, the failure of traditional “boss-management” leadership styles (in which the boss sets standards without compromise, tells workers how to perform tasks without showing them or accepting feedback, inspects work without input from workers –leading to their producing only minimally acceptable product– and uses the threat of punitive measures to keep workers in line).

As a replacement for boss-management, Glasser proposes “lead-management,” in which the supervisor spends her time and effort determining how best to implements systems so that workers will grasp how very much it is in their best interests to produce quality product. In other words, the manager manages the system, not the workers. The only people who can control the workers are the workers themselves. Glasser enumerates a set of four essential qualities of lead-managing:

*Engaging workers in dialogue about product quality and the time needed to attain it: with this information in hand, a lead-manager constantly tweaks the job so that it fits both the abilities and innate needs of the workers;
*Modeling jobs so workers can see precisely what sort of quality is expected and so they can provide input as to ways of getting to that level;
*Requesting that workers evaluate their own work for quality and relay their findings, trusting that they know a great deal about quality and should be paid attention to;
*Showing that the manager has done all she possibly could as a facilitator to put the best tools, workspace and non-coercive ambience at the workers’ disposition.

Beyond the obvious applications of lead-management to principalships and superintendencies, Glasser goes on to argue that the classroom itself should be modeled on the lead-management-controlled workplace. Recognizing that teaching is the most demanding and least rewarded profession, the author highlights an important difference between teaching and other sorts of authority positions: whereas, for example, workers in a factory have chosen to seek employ at that place and understand the benefit they derive from working well within the system established by the managers (or like patients in a doctor’s office trust that the physician is endeavoring to make their health better), students are not in school, typically, of their own volition, nor are they totally convinced of either the benefit of education or the goodwill of the teachers. These considerations, along with the lack of cultural support for education and the emphasis on low-quality standardized test scores, make teaching insanely complicated when professionals utilize traditional boss-management techniques.

Faced with the understanding that students’ five basic needs must be met in order for them to produce quality work –what Glasser argues school should really be all about, in contrast with the present prevalence of excessive quantities of low-quality multiple choice assignments –schools simply need to restructure themselves. Rather than hurtle students along a conveyor belt of empty memorization and skills tests, students need create quality work… regardless of how long it takes them. Once they begin to see quality work on display throughout the school, once their teachers are modeling such quality work themselves, once they see that quality in their own product, students, Glasser affirms, will begin to include school in that utopian inner fantasy world, their “quality world,” in which all the pleasing things they take joy in doing can be found.

But the author insists a restructuring of schools is needed to reach this level. From how classrooms are run to how the school itself is managed, Glasser proposes (and has been helping more than 200 schools in his Quality School Consortium to implement) a series of (occasionally radical) alterations:
*No more Cs, Ds or Fs: students work on an assignment until it is of the sort of quality they are capable of. This may mean extending some one-year courses (algebra, for example) to two years. To compensate for the severe asymmetry of the grade curve, students who go above and beyond, completing volunteer assignments and the like, will be assigned A+s.
*Students have input on the sorts of assignments they will be completing and the time they need to do so.
*Students have to constantly self-evaluate, checking work for quality and determining paths toward superior product.
*Classrooms are permanently reordered so that the teacher ceases to be the focus, most commonly by creating permanent cooperative groups.
*Punitive rules are eliminated. Conflicts are dealt with as the inability of a student to have one of her needs met, and dialectical approaches (with a time-out room on campus for severe cases) are used to reach resolution. Parents are not contacted for such matters, as the student must work through these difficulties herself, and the threat of “I’m calling your mom/dad” creates the sort of adversarial relationship between student and teacher that the quality school tries to remove.
*Homework is drastically reduced or eliminated (except where a student is finishing classwork at home). Quality work is produced through a union of workers and a lead-manager, and to be assigned tasks to be completed outside of the quality school runs contrary to its purpose.
*Persuade students to accept existing curricula by selecting key products (projects, papers, experiments, etc.) and asking students if they’re willing to do these specific components well. Once they have, the subsets of skills required can be explained to them, and they will be more willing to work on the nuts and bolts required for larger quality assignments.
*Include volunteer “friends” (i.e., mentors) who will deal one on one with those students whose need for belonging is not being met; Glasser theorizes that quite a bit of acting out comes from a type of loneliness only treatable by friendship with an adult.
*Institute a student peer counseling program.

Glasser ends his book by describing his efforts with a small school district in California that is working toward transforming itself into a quality school, showing –as one might have imagined –that putting his plan into practice takes time and significant unity of purpose among staff and students. He segues into some last recommendations for bringing all staff on board, such as bonuses based upon criteria like zero dropouts, near perfect attendance, lower-than-state-average teacher absenteeism, lack of discipline problems, higher-than-state-average students competency in “hard” courses, few or no diagnoses of special needs (a worrisome sidebar to his theory) and lowered student delinquency throughout the community. Glasser would have the school receive the bonus, which would then be divided among staff members and students (75% for the former and 25% for the latter group). The author encourages, finally, all schools to consider conversion to quality standards, as he opines that they will have the greatest impact on the community and eventually on the larger society, an inversion of many educators’ cry that “it’s the parents’ fault!”

[Mel Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was six weeks into 7th grade when I received my first detention--for not doing my math homework. I went to detention apprehensively, with my math book and another homework assignment so that I would have something to do. To my surprise I was told in angry tones that doing homework in detention was against the rules! The purpose of the time was to be merely punitive--and completely unproductive. From that point on I have noticed a lot of perversity and counterproductivity in our punitive educational model. So it was with great interest that I approached Dr. Glasser's work.
His two main objectives are:
1. To design an educational model that functions on motivation (personal responsibility) not coercion. This includes a paradigm shift from a coercive 'boss-lead' model to a lead-manager model in the culture of the educational institution.
2. To design an educational model that focuses on mastery of content and doing quality work, not merely 'getting by.' This is such a great idea. Students should be allowed to redo work to increase quality. There should not be a range of Cs and Ds to allow students to record their mediocre efforts.
H rightly suggests that most work done in schools today is not quality, and therefore students have little desire to get excited about it.
Glasser says, "You are trying to get students to judge the quality of life they are choosing to lead. They are used to judging the quality of others and having others judge them. It is judging themselves that will be new. . . "
Note that this book is very focused on the whole structure of the school. This will sometimes be applicable and sometimes not to the homeschool & parenting audience that might be reading the book.
Glasser also has a skepticism regarding the proliferation of learning disability labels (a skepticism I share in principle if not in degree). He even proposes rewarding teachers in whose classes there are fewer such labels. His belief is that many such labels are predicated on lack of self-motivation. In some educational communities today however this idea a nonstarter--often literally legally so.
I wish more attention in education reform were on these two topics--motivating without coercion, and producing quality v tepid work.
Highly recommended to those working in education or early childhood.

[Lan Le · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the central ideas are reasonable, it's a little outdated to be used as a major reference for teaching kids of the 21st century. Glasser does not seem to have been in a classroom as teacher for any lengthy period of time and doesn't provide any actual accounts of successful implementations of his theory. All scenarios he provides are just that--hypothetical scenarios. While I agree that managing students begins with building solid relationships, the idea of zero failures all the time when working with an extremely diverse group of students and creating more work for the teachers isn't necessarily realistic.

[Buesra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Türkçe çevirisini okudum. Çok güzel bilgiler edindiğimle birlikte çok tekrar eden bir kitap olduğunu düşünüyorum. 310 sayfayı, abartıdan kaçmak isterim ama, belki 50 sayfaya indirebiliriz. Ama bu William Glasser’e saygı duymamı engellemedi. Kendisiyle bu kitapla tanıştım ve kesinlikle başka kitaplarını da kitaplığıma katacağım. (4 puan tekrarlamalardan dolayı)

[Darren Beck · Rating 4 out of 5]

A reread from several years ago. Not sure enough people appreciate the validity of things Glasser has been saying for decades. This is full of great insights in 176 pages from 1990. 32 years later, they feel essential, crucial even, to implement.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still very timely to this day. I wish more schools would use the Quality Schools philosophy.

[Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب خوبی بود
اما هنوز ابهامات اجرایی داره

[Behnoud · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed it.

[Philip Mott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read The Quality School not long after reading Choice Theory. I was still working in the school system at this time and this short book just floored me.

Glasser argues that a quality education is about learning how to do quality work, not merely finishing a series of tasks. Students should get ample opportunities without punishments to be able to do the work correctly, which will be a learning process itself. Furthermore, he shows how helping students learn how to do quality work also teaches students how to meet their own needs and does away with many of the most frustrating behaviors in students.

You can find more of my thoughts on this book in a recent blog post: https://www.philipmott.com/2020/04/pa...

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Quality School owes its whole premise to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but unfortunately its author, Dr. William Glasser, is neither the philosopher nor the rhetorician that Robert Pirsig is. The Quality School suffers from bland writing and poorly explicated ideas, although the concepts themselves are for the most part worthwhile. Dr. Glasser makes no attempt to define quality (even to say, as Pirsig did initially, that Quality by its nature cannot be defined) until the end of chapter seven, roughly two-thirds of the way through the book; and even then he uses the word "quality" in his definition! I found the overuse of that term, undefined, immensely distracting, especially since he makes contradictory claims about quality, saying in one place that students can inherently recognize quality in schoolwork and in another place that students will not recognize quality unless it is pointed out to them.

His argument is that American schools are typically run by teachers and administrators who govern by coersion and punishments, rather than respecting that students will do work freely if they can see quality in the tasks they are asked to do. I agreed with many of his ideas, although the presentation (laden with business jargon) made me wince. It was doubly off-putting to realize that Dr. Glasser runs an organization that consults with schools to help them become Quality Schools (capital Q, capital S), and toward the end of the book he makes the claim that teachers and administrators cannot really understand how to become a Quality School without proper training (which is of course acquired by contracting with his organization). He also spends too much time hyping other books he has written, and often rather than explain a term or theory he refers the reader to one of his other books.

The book is an easy read and gave me some good ideas, but I would have a difficult time recommending it to anyone interested in teaching when I have read so many much more laudable books on the subject recently. (For example: Teaching to Transgress, How Children Learn, and Glasser's own influence, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.)

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This could have been either a much shorter or a much longer book. As it stands, Glasser gives lots of business theory, creates caricatures of the unenlightened teachers who don't sign up for his training, and offers few useful examples where his theory has been put into practice. He confidently, and laughably, predicts that schools will not need any discipline strategies once all coercion is removed. He also displays a ham-fisted and occasionally creepy approach to friendliness: universal name tags and uniformed "quality teams" that chase students down to their homes?

If you think motivating students to learn with more carrots than sticks is a good idea, you don't need to read this book.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this book for a job interview, but it had a lot of interesting ideas. It deals with the idea that people/students will only do what they fell fulfill one of their basic needs: survival, love, belonging, freedom, and power. As a teacher, we need to convince students that what we ask them to do does fulfill one of these needs. This book talks about dealing with minor and major classroom disruptions, grades, standardized tests, counseling, and how to take a "regular" school and turn it into a "quality school."

[Mr.soule · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. Glasser provides an uplifting solution to the problems of many schools. Teachers and parents can feel good about his suggestions since his optimism and belief that every child can succeed is contagious. To be fair, much has happened in the educational world since standards and high stakes testing came to rule the landscape, but many of Glasser's basic ideas are helpful nonetheless.

[Hamed Sgp · Rating 4 out of 5]

ايده كتاب جالب و قابل تأمل بود اما خيلي با نثر و شيوه بيان اون نتونستم ارتباط برقرار كنم .
بنظر مي رسه انگار متن كتاب از يك سلسله سخنراني استخراج شده و انسجام لازم رو نداره و در بخش هاي ابتدايي تكرار مطالب زياده.
اما در كل به همه كساني كه به موضوعات آموزشي تربيتي و نظريه انتخاب گلاسر علاقه مند هستند اين كتاب رو پيشنهاد مي كنم.

[Raleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed a great deal of this book. Especially where it dealt with attempting to bring education into students' quality world by changing your classroom into one in which coercion is never used.

[Raj Agrawal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book! Not just a book for teachers and administrators, but for anyone wanting to draw the best out of their teams. Parents should read this as well -- should be required reading for anyone who works with children.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Glasser believes in creating relevant assignments for students that help kids to see the connections between school and their world.

[Doug Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not read this for the school environment, but for the 'non-coercive' approach to managing. An excellent book, not really dated.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Glasser's theories are interesting, but can only go so far in classroom implementation.

[Ty · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a teacher wondering how to control those bad kids in this classroom, I suggest you read this book. You may find that the problem rests with your method of teaching...

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting ideas. A little dated.

[Shawn Snow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tips and pointers on how to create a better school. The book was okay but really dry and hard to read in certain spots. I would not recommend this to many, especially outside the educational system.