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White's Rules: Saving Our Youth One Kid at a Time
One heroic schoolteacher has saved hundreds of lives with unconditional love and zero tolerance for rule-breakers.
His students are the worst of the worst—drug addicts, gang members, and violent criminal offenders. They have flunked out or been thrown out of every other school they’ve attended. They may be the children of addicts, of abusers, or even of good parents, but they have one thing in they have been rejected by everyone except Paul White. With ten simple rules, he has helped hundreds of kids turn their lives around. “I can’t remember when I’ve been this happy. Since I came here I’m getting right with my family and friends, I’m off the drugs and staying out of trouble. I’m doing really well in school and I’ve got a job.”
—Kathy, fifteen, West Valley student, former crystal meth user
“He never gives up on you.”
—Roger, seventeen
Among students, they’re the worst of the chronic truants, drunks, drug addicts, even violent criminals. Some haven’t been to school for months, even years. Some have spent a year or more locked up for gang-related offenses and felony assaults. All of them, it seems, are on the short list of life’s early losers.
Enter Paul White, the teacher whose combination of unconditional love and unbreakable rules has changed, and sometimes saved, the lives of the most troubled students in Detroit, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles. When they walk through the door of his one-room high school, the West Valley Leadership Academy in Canoga Park, California, White treats them like his own loving them, protecting them, and requiring them to become men and women of moral courage, integrity, and high achievement.
Sometimes it only takes one person to turn the tide. During his twenty-five-year career as a teacher, Paul White has saved hundreds of students from falling through the cracks. Veritable miracles have taken place in his
?The reading skills of a fourteen-year-old recovering crystal meth addict climbed from a seventh- to a tenth-grade level in six months. She finished high school at age sixteen and went on to complete a nursing program.
A fifteen-year-old girl was flunking out of school—and so violent that the safety of the people around her couldn’t be guaranteed. After joining Paul’s class, she not only brought her grades up enough to graduate from high school at sixteen, but has gone on to finish several semesters at a local community college.
A seventeen-year-old boy who had been a neo-Nazi asked a Holocaust survivor to forgive him for his disrespectful behavior.
White’s Rules is a lesson to parents and educators who can’t control their kids or their classrooms. For Americans who truly want to stop the violence, end the apathy, and improve academic performance, White poses a Try his rules . The ten-rule list that he developed covers everything from character values to schoolwork, from getting off drugs to learning personal finance skills. By enforcing these rules, parents and educators can attack both the causes and the effects of the crisis in our schools. This is the moving story of how the program evolved and what we can all do to save our youth, one kid at a time.
His students are the worst of the worst—drug addicts, gang members, and violent criminal offenders. They have flunked out or been thrown out of every other school they’ve attended. They may be the children of addicts, of abusers, or even of good parents, but they have one thing in they have been rejected by everyone except Paul White. With ten simple rules, he has helped hundreds of kids turn their lives around. “I can’t remember when I’ve been this happy. Since I came here I’m getting right with my family and friends, I’m off the drugs and staying out of trouble. I’m doing really well in school and I’ve got a job.”
—Kathy, fifteen, West Valley student, former crystal meth user
“He never gives up on you.”
—Roger, seventeen
Among students, they’re the worst of the chronic truants, drunks, drug addicts, even violent criminals. Some haven’t been to school for months, even years. Some have spent a year or more locked up for gang-related offenses and felony assaults. All of them, it seems, are on the short list of life’s early losers.
Enter Paul White, the teacher whose combination of unconditional love and unbreakable rules has changed, and sometimes saved, the lives of the most troubled students in Detroit, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles. When they walk through the door of his one-room high school, the West Valley Leadership Academy in Canoga Park, California, White treats them like his own loving them, protecting them, and requiring them to become men and women of moral courage, integrity, and high achievement.
Sometimes it only takes one person to turn the tide. During his twenty-five-year career as a teacher, Paul White has saved hundreds of students from falling through the cracks. Veritable miracles have taken place in his
?The reading skills of a fourteen-year-old recovering crystal meth addict climbed from a seventh- to a tenth-grade level in six months. She finished high school at age sixteen and went on to complete a nursing program.
A fifteen-year-old girl was flunking out of school—and so violent that the safety of the people around her couldn’t be guaranteed. After joining Paul’s class, she not only brought her grades up enough to graduate from high school at sixteen, but has gone on to finish several semesters at a local community college.
A seventeen-year-old boy who had been a neo-Nazi asked a Holocaust survivor to forgive him for his disrespectful behavior.
White’s Rules is a lesson to parents and educators who can’t control their kids or their classrooms. For Americans who truly want to stop the violence, end the apathy, and improve academic performance, White poses a Try his rules . The ten-rule list that he developed covers everything from character values to schoolwork, from getting off drugs to learning personal finance skills. By enforcing these rules, parents and educators can attack both the causes and the effects of the crisis in our schools. This is the moving story of how the program evolved and what we can all do to save our youth, one kid at a time.
- GenresEducation
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 13, 2010
His rules are one's we already know - what is astounding is his conviction to them... in the face of adversity form bullies, gangs, absentee parents, etc. Mr. White never wavers from his rules and he makes a difference as a consequence.
His rules are simply: we show up, we dress and speak right, we work, we tell the truth, we respect people and property, we live clean and sober, we live with courage, we care, we learn from everything, we make a difference.
I also liked his idea on having children review a weekly progress plan with parents in which they set specific goals and the time needed to achieve them. The goals his students are simple - from washing dishes nightly without being reminded to doing homework to getting a job. But they are taken seriously and progress is reviewed.
Another very important lesson - one I think we forget about in the heat of the moment is... some words can never be taken back.
His rules are simply: we show up, we dress and speak right, we work, we tell the truth, we respect people and property, we live clean and sober, we live with courage, we care, we learn from everything, we make a difference.
I also liked his idea on having children review a weekly progress plan with parents in which they set specific goals and the time needed to achieve them. The goals his students are simple - from washing dishes nightly without being reminded to doing homework to getting a job. But they are taken seriously and progress is reviewed.
Another very important lesson - one I think we forget about in the heat of the moment is... some words can never be taken back.
August 4, 2019
Must be nice to have the full support of your district administration to be able to hold kids and parents to such a high standard. I would be curious if the school still holds its autonomy now fifteen years later. I have seen the benefits of these principles first hand and had I read this book sooner would have advised implementing more specific parental involvement.
My curiosity with these principles would be how to apply them with emotionally fragile students. Is it still necessary to be so rigid?
What I will most take away from this read is the need to be more confrontational as opposed to passive when it comes to addressing students faltering morality and to be way more active in calling home.
My curiosity with these principles would be how to apply them with emotionally fragile students. Is it still necessary to be so rigid?
What I will most take away from this read is the need to be more confrontational as opposed to passive when it comes to addressing students faltering morality and to be way more active in calling home.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews