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What Great Teachers Do Differently: Nineteen Things That Matter Most
What are the beliefs and behaviors that set great teachers apart? In this internationally renowned bestseller, Todd Whitaker reveals 19 keys to becoming more effective in the classroom.
This essential third edition features new sections on why it's about more than relationships, how to focus on a consistent, engaging learning environment, and the importance of choosing the right mode--business, parent, child--to improve your classroom management.
Perfect for educators at any level of experience, for independent reading or for schoolwide book studies, this practical book will leave you feeling inspired and ready to do the things that matter most for the people who matter most--your students.
This essential third edition features new sections on why it's about more than relationships, how to focus on a consistent, engaging learning environment, and the importance of choosing the right mode--business, parent, child--to improve your classroom management.
Perfect for educators at any level of experience, for independent reading or for schoolwide book studies, this practical book will leave you feeling inspired and ready to do the things that matter most for the people who matter most--your students.
150 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 2, 2020
66 people are currently reading
230 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
April 7, 2021
Oof. Frustrating book for a frustrating PD. I wish I had the author's confidence to make grand, sweeping statements and rarely ever back them up with anything. This lacks any nuance that's necessary to understand teaching and works on a binary of "great teacher" or "poor teacher". Overly simplistic and occasionally condescending.
December 6, 2021
While this book is semi-helpful for people who are currently in college and on the path to being educators, it was really frustrating that the author pushes a binary between “great teachers” and “poor teachers.” If you do not possess the ability to magically know what to do to be considered great in EVERY situation presented, you are therefore considered a poor teacher. In order to be a great teacher, I feel teachers need to adjust their teaching styles/management strategies to match the needs of their students, and that sometimes won’t be noticed by principals. So while this author seems experienced in his field, he can’t possibly notice every single thing that each teacher does that will consider them “great” in their students’ eyes.
Also, I feel like some of these points are rather outdated. There is a point noted within the book that encourages teachers to be positive no matter what, and to not show students other emotions. However, I feel this doesn’t align with what we are being taught to teach in college now; for example, bottling up our emotions shorts our students of a SEL experience with learning how to handle frustration or anger, which could easily be modeled by a teacher. However, if “great teachers” follow this author’s suggestion, their students will not receive this vital teaching moment.
Also, I feel like some of these points are rather outdated. There is a point noted within the book that encourages teachers to be positive no matter what, and to not show students other emotions. However, I feel this doesn’t align with what we are being taught to teach in college now; for example, bottling up our emotions shorts our students of a SEL experience with learning how to handle frustration or anger, which could easily be modeled by a teacher. However, if “great teachers” follow this author’s suggestion, their students will not receive this vital teaching moment.
November 26, 2021
2.5 stars. I found a few little gems of wisdom in this. However, I feel like this book was pretty common sense and could've been condensed into an article. I also wish there had been more strategies to become a great teacher, rather than just blanket statements. But it was still an interesting, short read.
April 11, 2022
This book is mainly just gaslighting teachers. Not worth the read.
October 17, 2022
I agreed with a lot of things in this book, but there were definitely things that didn’t sit well. I’ll never believe that never displaying anything but positive emotions is healthy. If anything, it gives kids an unrealistic model for their emotions. I’d rather show my kids how to work through frustrating emotions in a productive way than to never let them see me anything but smiling. I’ll use what made a lot of sense and discard the things that didn’t.
August 3, 2020
Though nothing earth-shattering, at first I liked this book. It was a thin, easy-to-consume text that compiled nuggets of teaching wisdom without too much extra fluff. However, the author’s lack of awareness of his own biases and lack of cultural responsiveness to inequities (with the brief exception of Chapter 18) completely turned me off by the end. The author rarely checks his own assumptions - for example, addressing guardians who aren’t on time to pick their students after field trips as “the negligent parents.”
I also disagree with the author's positioning of all teachers, students, and parents within rigid binaries of "great" and "poor." (troublesome students v. "the best ones," supportive parents v. "hostile ones") And while, yes, great teachers and poor teachers do both exist, it's my personal opinion that binaries are dangerous. They ignore the wide spectrum of behavior we're continually working along. Assuming that some educators have achieved legendary, do-no-wrong "greatness" can discourage great teachers from looking for ways to improve... or it can encourage developing teachers to give up even trying.
I also disagree with the author's positioning of all teachers, students, and parents within rigid binaries of "great" and "poor." (troublesome students v. "the best ones," supportive parents v. "hostile ones") And while, yes, great teachers and poor teachers do both exist, it's my personal opinion that binaries are dangerous. They ignore the wide spectrum of behavior we're continually working along. Assuming that some educators have achieved legendary, do-no-wrong "greatness" can discourage great teachers from looking for ways to improve... or it can encourage developing teachers to give up even trying.
July 29, 2022
The book was an easy read, but the whole thing was blanket statements of things good teachers do, not anything that can help them make measurable change.
July 25, 2022
I absolutely loved this book. So humbling and insightful. One that I will definitely strive to read again and again every few years. Whitaker does a great job of helping us refocus as educators and turn all that focus on our students and constantly re-evaluating ourselves: as teachers
July 2, 2025
Our school's teachers are doing this book, and an associated discussion/seminar as part of our continuing education this summer. I was told this book would answer some of my questions.
The "Nineteen Things That Matter Most", one per chapter, were: (Review below the listing)
1. Great teachers never forget that it is people, not programs, that determine the quality of a school.
2. Great teachers establish clear expectations at the start of the year and follow them consistently as the year progresses.
3. Great teachers manage their classrooms thoughtfully. When they say something, they mean it.
4. When a student misbehaves, great teachers have one goal: to keep that behavior from happening again.
5. Great teachers have high expectations for students, but have even higher expectations for themselves.
6. Great teachers never forget that it's about more than relationships. Relationships are important but are not magic beans. Great teachers work hard to deliver consistent, engaging instruction.
7. Great teachers are aware of the three modes - business, parent, child. They understand how to be in business mode most of the time since that's what we expect of students, too.
8. Great teachers know that they are the variable in the classroom. Good teachers consistently strive to improve, and they focus on something they can control: their own performance.
9. Great teachers focus on students first, with a broad vision that keeps everything in perspective.
10. Great teachers create a positive atmosphere in their classrooms and schools. they treat every person with respect. In particular, they understand the power of praise.
11. Great teachers consistently filter out the negatives that don't matter and share a positive attitude.
12. Great teachers work hard to keep their relationships in good repair to avoid personal hurt and to repair any possible damage.
13. Great teachers have the ability to ignore trivial disturbances and the ability to respond to inappropriate behavior without escalating the situation.
14. Great teachers have a plan and purpose - intentionalness - for everything they do. If plans don't work out the way they had envisioned, they reflect on what they could have done differently and adjust accordingly.
15. Before making any decision or attempting to bring about any change, great teachers ask themselves one central question: What will the best people think?
16. Great teachers continually ask themselves who is most comfortable and who is least comfortable with each decision they make. They treat everyone as if they were good.
17. Great teachers have empathy for students and clarity about how others see them.
18. Great teachers keep standardized testing in perspective. They focus on the real issue of student learning.
19. Great teachers car about their students. they understand that behaviors and beliefs are tied to emotion, and they understand the power of emotion to jump-start change.
The Good:
I liked the quote from the 38-year 5th grade teaching-veteran, that "for these students, it's the first time around." That reminds me of one of my daughters talking about cognitive and memory-care patients. I'd asked her how she coped with having the same conversations over and over with them, and she said she remembered that for them, it was the first time they'd had the conversation.
I discovered, too, years earlier, in repetitively rereading toddler books to my own kids, that it helped me if I focused more on the child than on the book I was reading. The "curriculum", if you will, was the same, but the child was bonding, growing, and learning.
I like the strategy of ignoring pranks when they happen, and dealing individually with the children after class, without an audience.
I like the idea of teaching the kids how to apologize, and giving them the words they may not have. However, when I tried that this past school year, it did not work well, and ended up with them making fun of it. Perhaps it would work better for younger students.
I can also see the value in calling parents without forewarning the student.
I like the saying, "Angry students are the problem, not the solution." I can't imagine teachers judging the quality of their discipline by how angry the student is. That only moves their hearts further away from wanting to do the right thing. Consequences, sure. Anger, no.
I also like the quote, "Effective teachers understand that what matters is not whether a student leaves the office mad, and not what the students reports to his peers, but how the student behaves in the future."
I like the list of possible responses, which, like the author, I had heard before: eye contact, proximity, redirection, sending them to the office, timeout, argue, send them to sit in the hall, ignore, praise another student for positive behavior. I can only see that last one working on small children. Teenagers do not want to be singled out publicly for good behavior.
"We never win an argument with a student. As soon as it starts, we have lost. If their peers are watching, they cannot afford to give in."
"Conflict ... - especially if it is not resolved - often leads to a loss of trust."
"When students have a teacher who has engaging lessons every day (consistently), they automatically have a relationship with that teacher." I like the reminder that relationship can be that simple.
I love that the great math teacher teaches math on the first day of class, because it sets the tone and the expectation for the rest of the schoolyear. I do that in my physics class. I don't, however, do that with my engineering class, because they are younger, and because it's "just" an elective, with fewer required hoops to jump through. But maybe I should.
I like the thought that people have 3 modes for their behavior: business, parent, and child, and we need to keep the students in business mode. (Or adult, parent, and child.) It also seems to be true that on the first day of school, they come prepared in business mode, but if we play around with them on the first day, that switches to child mode, and business mode is hard to reclaim.
I love the quote, "But there are other people that we are genuinely excited to reconnect with. We know that every time we are around them, it is different and special. This is exactly what being in a great teacher's classroom is like. We do have a relationship with the teacher. It might be deep, meaningful, and personal. It also might be one that is built on learning."
"They expect students to pay attention no matter how boring and repetitious their classes are." It's a good reminder to watch the interest level of our students.
"Some people are quick to jump on any new bandwagon. (With all due respect and affection, I sometimes refer to them as 'The Lunatic Fringe.') Others will more carefully probe and examine a proposal, try it out gradually, and in the end accept it wholeheartedly. But some stubbornly resist change of any kind." I like this listing, but it leaves out one possibility, of those who "carefully probe and examine a proposal, try it out gradually, and in the end" find it lacking or harmful.
"Once you join the Complainers Club, it's hard to quit."
I like the strategies for effective praise: authentic, specific, immediate, clean (as in not tarnished with a "... but ..."), and private.
"Every time I praise someone, at least two people feel better - and one of them is me."
"People who resent praise given to others do so mainly because they don't feel valued themselves."
*"Great teachers want their students to be more excited about learning tomorrow than they are today." This makes me think that I can spend a couple minutes outlining the next lesson and things to look forward to.
"What keeps them from apologizing? Usually, what stands in the way is their lack of self-confidence or - often the flip side of the same coin - their pride or ego."
I like the statement, "I am sorry that happened," without taking responsibility for things not under our control. Someone slipped and fell? I'm sorry that happened. Another phrase I've heard used when someone is grieving is, "My heart goes out to you and your family."
"We've all known teachers whose buttons are easily pushed, and we've seen how quickly students identify these teachers and their entertainment value."
"For the sake of our own self-worth, we tend to stay away from someone who regularly points out our mistakes... Although we may think that when others criticize us we try harder, at some point, when it happens too frequently, we are likely to quit."
"High achievers put so much of themselves into what they do that any criticism, no matter how minor, can become a personal affront... On the other hand, they don't want to be ignored."
"It's a mistake to focus on the least effective people and issue broad directives because of one or two miscreants. At best, we make our top performers feel guilty. At worst, we insult them." I've thought this before, in how some of my kids' teachers have managed their classrooms. Thank you for saying so.
"We always treat our students as if their parents were in the room. Another is that we treat every student with the best students in mind.... Our best students do want misbehavior addressed, but never in a humiliating way. They do want us to deal with the students who disrupt learning, but they want us to do it respectfully."
"Do I hold up the standards at the finish line and watch the students make their way down the track as best they can? Or am I at their sides, helping them to develop the skills they need?"
"Mrs. Heart wasn't preparing her students for the state test. She was preparing her students for life, and this is what teaching is all about."
"When her colleagues used inappropriate and hurtful humor, she didn't confront them - she simply didn't laugh."
"But until we connect with them emotionally, we may never be able to connect with their minds."
"This fear of the unknown can sometimes be a more powerful deterrent than a list of predetermined consequences."
The "Eh?":
In the intro, the author says that others correlate better teaching with more subject area expertise and higher degrees, but he wants to correlate it with attitudes. Although this is a reasonable premise, he did not actually perform any statistical analysis of surveys regarding teacher attitudes. He just went with that assumption and promoted various positive attitudes, which are most likely beneficial. But his evidence is anecdotal, not scientific. I can't see that passing muster in any of our fields of study.
"Great teachers focus on expectations. Other teachers focus on rules. The least effective teachers focus on the consequences of breaking the rules." I just find this phrasing confusing and perhaps just semantics.
Expectations can be expressed in terms of rules, which results in a duality of those two words. Perhaps those rules can be phrased more positively than negatively. "We will take care of our lab equipment,"(expectation or positive rule) instead of "Damaging lab equipment will result in ..." (negative rule.)
And even if we don't "focus" on the consequences of breaking the rules, we at least need to have an action plan in the back of our minds as to what to do when such & such happens, even if it is not our outward focus.
I do understand how listing the penalties with a rule can cause students to wonder if it's worth "paying" the penalty in order to break the rule. "Two hours of detention. Is it worth it?"
I have skepticism about starting to deal with behavior, not with the most extremely misbehaving students, but with those whose behavior is not quite as bad. The idea is that if you can change the middle-ground students for the better, then there will be fewer misbehaviors, and then you can focus on the most distracting students. The problem with this is that the worst behaving students are still distracting other students, or perhaps even engaging in dangerous behaviors, while you deal with lesser offenses. It leads to the more mildly misbehaving student thinking, "Why are you picking on me and not him?" Or why are you picking on me for texting in class, when he punched somebody?
"We gravitate toward each other during recess duty, lunch supervision, and student assemblies ... Great teachers resist the temptation to socialize." I find that this is not my personality or mindset at all. Nor am I the only introverted teacher. I can think of others. I don't mind being up front and talking, and I do enjoy friendships, but after so many human-interactions with the students, I'd rather have my personal space than another human interaction, even one with another adult. If I seek out another teacher, it's for a specific purpose - advise, or equipment, perhaps - not just to gab. One time, they had food for us at an after-school event, and I thought (but didn't say) to the lady across from me: "How are you still talking? Why are you still talking?"
Perhaps teaching does attract more extroverts than introverts, but still, we exist.
"If you don't act as if you like them, then your students won't think you care for them, even if you do. And if you act as if you like them, then your true feelings towards them are irrelevant." There is a good nugget in there, if you can get away from any untruths. I am slow to actually bond with people - professionally distant is how I'd view myself - but I do find that I care about all my students by the end of the school year. I can't think of any exceptions to that, even if I am relieved they go home for the summer. Still, I am not effervescent with them. That would just be, and feel, fake to me.
Likewise, I also get the importance in the next chapter of having a filter between your private and professional lives. There's no need to burden the kids with grownup struggles. But I also feel we shouldn't lie about challenging situations, either. Not dwell on them, but not lie about them, either. Instead, I like to find something I'm looking forward to in the moment, generally something in the curriculum, and that helps me stay positive without putting on a fake happy face.
I thought the analogy of the T-rays, the Teacher-rays, and how close you have to be to the students to influence their behavior was funny. Since I teach physics, I'm already comparing it to gravitational field strength and electric field strength. Are T-rays proportional to 1/r^2? How do we measure such a thing? Or maybe it's more like the intensity of sound waves, which again, is proportional to 1/r^2.
"Hostile parents love to argue; it's their niche. That's one good reason never to argue with difficult people. They have a lot more practice at it!" That's probably true, but the author never tells us what to do instead.
Likewise, the author says, "If one student tends to be disruptive, the teacher takes steps to minimize that student's impact on others in the room." Once again, the author does not tell us how, or give suggestions.
My biggest concern with this book is the assumption that positive attitudes will cure everything, if you just gloss over it enough. I don't consider myself either a complainer or a enthusiastic cheerleader of a teacher, neither extreme. I suppose mostly I am quiet, willing to wait and see what will come to pass in the direction of the school, and I give way to those with more experience.
But this positive attitude is so different than the engineering disciplines, where our ideas are thoroughly tested by peer review before they come to fruition - to find the problems before they occur and to prevent them, or at the very least, to debug them when they are discovered. I once said that I would be frightened if I ever designed something, and it wasn't challenged. I could feel better if it were challenged and the design had met those questions and challenges.
That's not just put on a happy face, gloss everything over, ignore or isolate the complainers, etc. The complainers may have some very vital piece of information that it may be hazardous to ignore. The teacher I am thinking of here, who would be labeled a complainer, has a vast treasure-trove of experience and knowledge, and may well be considered a top-tier teacher, for all I know. (I don't think he complains to the students, and is professional with them, as well as to the rest of the faculty.) As I said at the beginning, there's no scientific study mentioned relating teacher attitude to quality student output. Maybe the better teachers can more easily find the hogwash in new programs.
Ideas aren't better just because they're new. Ideas aren't better just because they're old, either. Each idea stands on its own merits, and should stand on a stringent evaluation and implementation.
Just put a good attitude on it and it will all work out makes me think of "Just click your heels together three times and you will find yourself at home." Make-believe.
The "Nineteen Things That Matter Most", one per chapter, were: (Review below the listing)
1. Great teachers never forget that it is people, not programs, that determine the quality of a school.
2. Great teachers establish clear expectations at the start of the year and follow them consistently as the year progresses.
3. Great teachers manage their classrooms thoughtfully. When they say something, they mean it.
4. When a student misbehaves, great teachers have one goal: to keep that behavior from happening again.
5. Great teachers have high expectations for students, but have even higher expectations for themselves.
6. Great teachers never forget that it's about more than relationships. Relationships are important but are not magic beans. Great teachers work hard to deliver consistent, engaging instruction.
7. Great teachers are aware of the three modes - business, parent, child. They understand how to be in business mode most of the time since that's what we expect of students, too.
8. Great teachers know that they are the variable in the classroom. Good teachers consistently strive to improve, and they focus on something they can control: their own performance.
9. Great teachers focus on students first, with a broad vision that keeps everything in perspective.
10. Great teachers create a positive atmosphere in their classrooms and schools. they treat every person with respect. In particular, they understand the power of praise.
11. Great teachers consistently filter out the negatives that don't matter and share a positive attitude.
12. Great teachers work hard to keep their relationships in good repair to avoid personal hurt and to repair any possible damage.
13. Great teachers have the ability to ignore trivial disturbances and the ability to respond to inappropriate behavior without escalating the situation.
14. Great teachers have a plan and purpose - intentionalness - for everything they do. If plans don't work out the way they had envisioned, they reflect on what they could have done differently and adjust accordingly.
15. Before making any decision or attempting to bring about any change, great teachers ask themselves one central question: What will the best people think?
16. Great teachers continually ask themselves who is most comfortable and who is least comfortable with each decision they make. They treat everyone as if they were good.
17. Great teachers have empathy for students and clarity about how others see them.
18. Great teachers keep standardized testing in perspective. They focus on the real issue of student learning.
19. Great teachers car about their students. they understand that behaviors and beliefs are tied to emotion, and they understand the power of emotion to jump-start change.
The Good:
I liked the quote from the 38-year 5th grade teaching-veteran, that "for these students, it's the first time around." That reminds me of one of my daughters talking about cognitive and memory-care patients. I'd asked her how she coped with having the same conversations over and over with them, and she said she remembered that for them, it was the first time they'd had the conversation.
I discovered, too, years earlier, in repetitively rereading toddler books to my own kids, that it helped me if I focused more on the child than on the book I was reading. The "curriculum", if you will, was the same, but the child was bonding, growing, and learning.
I like the strategy of ignoring pranks when they happen, and dealing individually with the children after class, without an audience.
I like the idea of teaching the kids how to apologize, and giving them the words they may not have. However, when I tried that this past school year, it did not work well, and ended up with them making fun of it. Perhaps it would work better for younger students.
I can also see the value in calling parents without forewarning the student.
I like the saying, "Angry students are the problem, not the solution." I can't imagine teachers judging the quality of their discipline by how angry the student is. That only moves their hearts further away from wanting to do the right thing. Consequences, sure. Anger, no.
I also like the quote, "Effective teachers understand that what matters is not whether a student leaves the office mad, and not what the students reports to his peers, but how the student behaves in the future."
I like the list of possible responses, which, like the author, I had heard before: eye contact, proximity, redirection, sending them to the office, timeout, argue, send them to sit in the hall, ignore, praise another student for positive behavior. I can only see that last one working on small children. Teenagers do not want to be singled out publicly for good behavior.
"We never win an argument with a student. As soon as it starts, we have lost. If their peers are watching, they cannot afford to give in."
"Conflict ... - especially if it is not resolved - often leads to a loss of trust."
"When students have a teacher who has engaging lessons every day (consistently), they automatically have a relationship with that teacher." I like the reminder that relationship can be that simple.
I love that the great math teacher teaches math on the first day of class, because it sets the tone and the expectation for the rest of the schoolyear. I do that in my physics class. I don't, however, do that with my engineering class, because they are younger, and because it's "just" an elective, with fewer required hoops to jump through. But maybe I should.
I like the thought that people have 3 modes for their behavior: business, parent, and child, and we need to keep the students in business mode. (Or adult, parent, and child.) It also seems to be true that on the first day of school, they come prepared in business mode, but if we play around with them on the first day, that switches to child mode, and business mode is hard to reclaim.
I love the quote, "But there are other people that we are genuinely excited to reconnect with. We know that every time we are around them, it is different and special. This is exactly what being in a great teacher's classroom is like. We do have a relationship with the teacher. It might be deep, meaningful, and personal. It also might be one that is built on learning."
"They expect students to pay attention no matter how boring and repetitious their classes are." It's a good reminder to watch the interest level of our students.
"Some people are quick to jump on any new bandwagon. (With all due respect and affection, I sometimes refer to them as 'The Lunatic Fringe.') Others will more carefully probe and examine a proposal, try it out gradually, and in the end accept it wholeheartedly. But some stubbornly resist change of any kind." I like this listing, but it leaves out one possibility, of those who "carefully probe and examine a proposal, try it out gradually, and in the end" find it lacking or harmful.
"Once you join the Complainers Club, it's hard to quit."
I like the strategies for effective praise: authentic, specific, immediate, clean (as in not tarnished with a "... but ..."), and private.
"Every time I praise someone, at least two people feel better - and one of them is me."
"People who resent praise given to others do so mainly because they don't feel valued themselves."
*"Great teachers want their students to be more excited about learning tomorrow than they are today." This makes me think that I can spend a couple minutes outlining the next lesson and things to look forward to.
"What keeps them from apologizing? Usually, what stands in the way is their lack of self-confidence or - often the flip side of the same coin - their pride or ego."
I like the statement, "I am sorry that happened," without taking responsibility for things not under our control. Someone slipped and fell? I'm sorry that happened. Another phrase I've heard used when someone is grieving is, "My heart goes out to you and your family."
"We've all known teachers whose buttons are easily pushed, and we've seen how quickly students identify these teachers and their entertainment value."
"For the sake of our own self-worth, we tend to stay away from someone who regularly points out our mistakes... Although we may think that when others criticize us we try harder, at some point, when it happens too frequently, we are likely to quit."
"High achievers put so much of themselves into what they do that any criticism, no matter how minor, can become a personal affront... On the other hand, they don't want to be ignored."
"It's a mistake to focus on the least effective people and issue broad directives because of one or two miscreants. At best, we make our top performers feel guilty. At worst, we insult them." I've thought this before, in how some of my kids' teachers have managed their classrooms. Thank you for saying so.
"We always treat our students as if their parents were in the room. Another is that we treat every student with the best students in mind.... Our best students do want misbehavior addressed, but never in a humiliating way. They do want us to deal with the students who disrupt learning, but they want us to do it respectfully."
"Do I hold up the standards at the finish line and watch the students make their way down the track as best they can? Or am I at their sides, helping them to develop the skills they need?"
"Mrs. Heart wasn't preparing her students for the state test. She was preparing her students for life, and this is what teaching is all about."
"When her colleagues used inappropriate and hurtful humor, she didn't confront them - she simply didn't laugh."
"But until we connect with them emotionally, we may never be able to connect with their minds."
"This fear of the unknown can sometimes be a more powerful deterrent than a list of predetermined consequences."
The "Eh?":
In the intro, the author says that others correlate better teaching with more subject area expertise and higher degrees, but he wants to correlate it with attitudes. Although this is a reasonable premise, he did not actually perform any statistical analysis of surveys regarding teacher attitudes. He just went with that assumption and promoted various positive attitudes, which are most likely beneficial. But his evidence is anecdotal, not scientific. I can't see that passing muster in any of our fields of study.
"Great teachers focus on expectations. Other teachers focus on rules. The least effective teachers focus on the consequences of breaking the rules." I just find this phrasing confusing and perhaps just semantics.
Expectations can be expressed in terms of rules, which results in a duality of those two words. Perhaps those rules can be phrased more positively than negatively. "We will take care of our lab equipment,"(expectation or positive rule) instead of "Damaging lab equipment will result in ..." (negative rule.)
And even if we don't "focus" on the consequences of breaking the rules, we at least need to have an action plan in the back of our minds as to what to do when such & such happens, even if it is not our outward focus.
I do understand how listing the penalties with a rule can cause students to wonder if it's worth "paying" the penalty in order to break the rule. "Two hours of detention. Is it worth it?"
I have skepticism about starting to deal with behavior, not with the most extremely misbehaving students, but with those whose behavior is not quite as bad. The idea is that if you can change the middle-ground students for the better, then there will be fewer misbehaviors, and then you can focus on the most distracting students. The problem with this is that the worst behaving students are still distracting other students, or perhaps even engaging in dangerous behaviors, while you deal with lesser offenses. It leads to the more mildly misbehaving student thinking, "Why are you picking on me and not him?" Or why are you picking on me for texting in class, when he punched somebody?
"We gravitate toward each other during recess duty, lunch supervision, and student assemblies ... Great teachers resist the temptation to socialize." I find that this is not my personality or mindset at all. Nor am I the only introverted teacher. I can think of others. I don't mind being up front and talking, and I do enjoy friendships, but after so many human-interactions with the students, I'd rather have my personal space than another human interaction, even one with another adult. If I seek out another teacher, it's for a specific purpose - advise, or equipment, perhaps - not just to gab. One time, they had food for us at an after-school event, and I thought (but didn't say) to the lady across from me: "How are you still talking? Why are you still talking?"
Perhaps teaching does attract more extroverts than introverts, but still, we exist.
"If you don't act as if you like them, then your students won't think you care for them, even if you do. And if you act as if you like them, then your true feelings towards them are irrelevant." There is a good nugget in there, if you can get away from any untruths. I am slow to actually bond with people - professionally distant is how I'd view myself - but I do find that I care about all my students by the end of the school year. I can't think of any exceptions to that, even if I am relieved they go home for the summer. Still, I am not effervescent with them. That would just be, and feel, fake to me.
Likewise, I also get the importance in the next chapter of having a filter between your private and professional lives. There's no need to burden the kids with grownup struggles. But I also feel we shouldn't lie about challenging situations, either. Not dwell on them, but not lie about them, either. Instead, I like to find something I'm looking forward to in the moment, generally something in the curriculum, and that helps me stay positive without putting on a fake happy face.
I thought the analogy of the T-rays, the Teacher-rays, and how close you have to be to the students to influence their behavior was funny. Since I teach physics, I'm already comparing it to gravitational field strength and electric field strength. Are T-rays proportional to 1/r^2? How do we measure such a thing? Or maybe it's more like the intensity of sound waves, which again, is proportional to 1/r^2.
"Hostile parents love to argue; it's their niche. That's one good reason never to argue with difficult people. They have a lot more practice at it!" That's probably true, but the author never tells us what to do instead.
Likewise, the author says, "If one student tends to be disruptive, the teacher takes steps to minimize that student's impact on others in the room." Once again, the author does not tell us how, or give suggestions.
My biggest concern with this book is the assumption that positive attitudes will cure everything, if you just gloss over it enough. I don't consider myself either a complainer or a enthusiastic cheerleader of a teacher, neither extreme. I suppose mostly I am quiet, willing to wait and see what will come to pass in the direction of the school, and I give way to those with more experience.
But this positive attitude is so different than the engineering disciplines, where our ideas are thoroughly tested by peer review before they come to fruition - to find the problems before they occur and to prevent them, or at the very least, to debug them when they are discovered. I once said that I would be frightened if I ever designed something, and it wasn't challenged. I could feel better if it were challenged and the design had met those questions and challenges.
That's not just put on a happy face, gloss everything over, ignore or isolate the complainers, etc. The complainers may have some very vital piece of information that it may be hazardous to ignore. The teacher I am thinking of here, who would be labeled a complainer, has a vast treasure-trove of experience and knowledge, and may well be considered a top-tier teacher, for all I know. (I don't think he complains to the students, and is professional with them, as well as to the rest of the faculty.) As I said at the beginning, there's no scientific study mentioned relating teacher attitude to quality student output. Maybe the better teachers can more easily find the hogwash in new programs.
Ideas aren't better just because they're new. Ideas aren't better just because they're old, either. Each idea stands on its own merits, and should stand on a stringent evaluation and implementation.
Just put a good attitude on it and it will all work out makes me think of "Just click your heels together three times and you will find yourself at home." Make-believe.
June 3, 2021
2.5 stars. Blew through the audio in an afternoon. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it either. A few practical insights, but mostly a lot of ‘great teachers have superhuman wisdom and patience and know exactly what to do in every situation.’
January 29, 2025
I feel like this book is just one administrator listing qualities he wants in his teachers, but there's no data to support the statements he's making. Most of the things the author recommends are common sense.
August 13, 2024
A great quick read for every experience level of teachers.
October 2, 2025
To quote Macbeth… this education book is full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
June 29, 2024
This book is a great reminder on what it takes to be a great teacher. And how we can strive to be better than good. Trying to remember my blessings and appreciate my ability to educate children.
May 6, 2025
Extreme Ownership but for Teachers…
June 26, 2023
Todd Whitaker's What Great Teachers Do Differently is probably a must read for teachers.
But...and it's a big ol' but...the teacher must be in the right frame of mind to read it. Education is pretty much broken right now. We are all rushing down a raging river in a hole-riddled boat. We are paddling and bailing water furiously. So if someone threw us a great little book on how to effectively paddle your well-cared-for canoe down a lazy river, we might throw it back. Hard. And aimed at the face.
I read this book for a book study so that I can move over on the pay scale. That's what teachers do, right? I found it quite interesting an useful, sometimes validating, sometimes curious. I wish he hadn't used "great" in the name. I wish he'd used something like effective. A teacher can be great in one situation and not in another. However, his nineteen things that matter most are worth considering.
Here's what I like about the book:
It's short. Teachers are busy. We need an author to get to the point, and Whitaker does.
Great examples. Whitaker uses examples that most teachers of every level can relate to.
It's hopeful. I do love a positive yet realistic approach. For the most part, he deals in reality.
Here's what I don't appreciate about the book:
A few moments of judgmental condescension. For example, he refers to one school he worked with as "Country Club High" and confesses he "always assumed Country Club High could not possibly have problems". He does say he learned that his assumption wasn't exactly true, but the reader still feels as if he discounts "Country Club" problems.
The good teacher myth. There are moments when Whitaker supports what I call the Good Teacher Myth. He mentions how the "great" teachers are the ones coming in early and staying after and making home visits before the start of the year. I'm sure they are. However, I still struggle with the idea that a teacher can't be great unless he/she sacrifices time and energy that might have been spent on his/her own family.
Overall, the book is well written and offers good insight and positive message--two concepts greatly needed in education today.
But...and it's a big ol' but...the teacher must be in the right frame of mind to read it. Education is pretty much broken right now. We are all rushing down a raging river in a hole-riddled boat. We are paddling and bailing water furiously. So if someone threw us a great little book on how to effectively paddle your well-cared-for canoe down a lazy river, we might throw it back. Hard. And aimed at the face.
I read this book for a book study so that I can move over on the pay scale. That's what teachers do, right? I found it quite interesting an useful, sometimes validating, sometimes curious. I wish he hadn't used "great" in the name. I wish he'd used something like effective. A teacher can be great in one situation and not in another. However, his nineteen things that matter most are worth considering.
Here's what I like about the book:
It's short. Teachers are busy. We need an author to get to the point, and Whitaker does.
Great examples. Whitaker uses examples that most teachers of every level can relate to.
It's hopeful. I do love a positive yet realistic approach. For the most part, he deals in reality.
Here's what I don't appreciate about the book:
A few moments of judgmental condescension. For example, he refers to one school he worked with as "Country Club High" and confesses he "always assumed Country Club High could not possibly have problems". He does say he learned that his assumption wasn't exactly true, but the reader still feels as if he discounts "Country Club" problems.
The good teacher myth. There are moments when Whitaker supports what I call the Good Teacher Myth. He mentions how the "great" teachers are the ones coming in early and staying after and making home visits before the start of the year. I'm sure they are. However, I still struggle with the idea that a teacher can't be great unless he/she sacrifices time and energy that might have been spent on his/her own family.
Overall, the book is well written and offers good insight and positive message--two concepts greatly needed in education today.
December 30, 2023
I don't know if it is because I just finished Teach Like a Champion 2.0, which is full of strategies, but I found this book to be lacking. There are too many anecdotes and few (if any) strategies. Also, I found that the tone of the book was "you're either a great teacher, or you're not" instead of actually pushing us to become better. I think this is due to his word choice, but it got under my skin the whole time I read the book.
July 22, 2023
I will and always do stand that sarcasm is not as bad as it is portrayed. Your goal should never be to embarrass your students or co-workers, or used as a disciplinary action. However, when I use sarcasm with my students, I find I have deeper and better connections and relationships. It allows them to get to know me and vice versa.
I found all other information extremely insightful and helpful.
I found all other information extremely insightful and helpful.
July 17, 2023
While I enjoyed this book and thought that the information was useful, I would not recommend it to a newer teacher. The author makes a lot of generalized statements that aren’t very specific. If you are looking for something to inspire your teacher philosophy this book is for you. But if you are looking for actual examples and techniques to incorporate into your teaching I would skip this one.
April 11, 2024
4.75 ⭐️
June 26, 2025
Most of these things are obvious and I'm not sure that any teacher who doesn't already do these things will be convinced by a book. Understandably reading a book is very different than being in the classroom, but the author doesn't seem to treat the teacher audience as students he's trying to teach and there y fails to practice what he is saying and a few times contradicts in one chapter something he said in another. I'm also skeptical of any "one size fits all" approach to anything (including education). And it is disingenuous to ignore problems and struggles that teachers have. Attitude does matter and teachers should be careful about complaining to other staff or bringing their personal in to school, but coworkers and students deserve to see teachers being genuine. I educate the whole child and want to teach them to be well-rounded adults, which I can't do if I'm not open and honest. However, my biggest criticism is that it isn't obvious that the information presented is anything but anecdotal, cheery-picked, emotional examples. The audiobook did say that references/sources were cited in the print version, but it wasn't obvious from the text that any of this is research-based. I am sure that the author was probably a descent teacher and administrator (and he certainly cared about arriving to be one). He probably is a descent motivational speaker and workshop leader, but it didn't connect with me through the text. That's not to say that it is all bad- the important things are important (just obvious) and it served to reinforce what I'm doing well, pointed out a few places for improvement, and made me despair a little about some problems in my current situation.
December 26, 2025
I have had the privilege of knowing hundreds of great teachers over the course of my professional life. For many years, I worked for an education foundation in Illinois that honored outstanding teachers, after a rigorous application and observation process. I got to know and work with all of them.
I've also trained in the Charlotte Danielson rubric with its descriptions of the qualities of distinguished teachers. Todd Whitaker's book captures the qualities of excellent teachers beautifully.
I would heartily recommend it to teachers at any stage in their career, assuming they want to become better at their craft. After an intro chapter examining why studying greatness in teaching matters, Whitaker follows with nineteen chapters, each focusing on a different attribute of great teachers. These are summarized at the end of each chapter and listed at the end of the book.
Here's a sample:
"Great teachers care about their students. They understand the behaviors and beliefs are tied to emotions, and they understand the power of emotion to jump-start change."
"Great teachers have high expectations for students, but have even higher expectations for themselves."
"Great teachers establish clear expectations at the start of the year and follow them consistently as the year progresses."
"Great teachers have empathy for students and clarity about how others see them."
"Great teachers keep standardized testing in perspective. They focus on the real issue of student learning."
Excellent book for the educator or prospective educator in your life.
I've also trained in the Charlotte Danielson rubric with its descriptions of the qualities of distinguished teachers. Todd Whitaker's book captures the qualities of excellent teachers beautifully.
I would heartily recommend it to teachers at any stage in their career, assuming they want to become better at their craft. After an intro chapter examining why studying greatness in teaching matters, Whitaker follows with nineteen chapters, each focusing on a different attribute of great teachers. These are summarized at the end of each chapter and listed at the end of the book.
Here's a sample:
"Great teachers care about their students. They understand the behaviors and beliefs are tied to emotions, and they understand the power of emotion to jump-start change."
"Great teachers have high expectations for students, but have even higher expectations for themselves."
"Great teachers establish clear expectations at the start of the year and follow them consistently as the year progresses."
"Great teachers have empathy for students and clarity about how others see them."
"Great teachers keep standardized testing in perspective. They focus on the real issue of student learning."
Excellent book for the educator or prospective educator in your life.
May 6, 2024
This book was used as a monthly book study with teachers throughout our school, led my the principal. I loved how it made us come together as colleagues and talk about strengths and weaknesses and how it relates to our specific environment. The guided questions that went along were great. The downfall of this book is how concrete the authors opinions are. There is definitely a scale on some topics that were painted out to be black or white, which many of our best teachers felt targeted at. It is also difficult to translate this book to grades k-8 when experiences are so drastically different.
November 24, 2024
I had to read this book for grad school and as a teacher/ student this is the worst book you can read for classroom teachers. It is clear the author never spent any real time in the classroom, the strategies he gives are asinine, and if you are an elementary teacher like me GOOD LUCK! This author doesn’t care about you as a teacher or your students, he wrote this to inflate his ego and make money. Anyone who takes a first year undergraduate classroom management course learns more strategies then provided in this book. Save your money and if you are forced to read it like I was forget the information as soon as you read it.
June 29, 2021
Some great pieces of advice especially for a new teacher. Will definitely pick up his other book on effective classroom management. This book gave personal anecdotes for each strategy that made it very digestible for the reader. Will use many of the strategies and points made in my classroom, so I’d consider it a good read. Also, the chapters are only 3-4 pages so you could easily get through it in a couple sittings. :-)
January 27, 2022
I totally enjoyed this book! I feel like in my 37 year of teaching I am a pretty good teacher but feel I can always look for ways to be better. In reading this book I was challenged and indeed found a few things I can focus on tomorrow to help make me ever a better teacher. I felt the book was an easy entertaining read for the topic. I appreciate the short yet concise information in each chapter. I feel like I would both enjoy and benefit by looking at some of this authors other books.
September 28, 2023
i don’t know if i liked this book at all. it was a mandatory read for a class, but i’m not completely sold on the nineteen ideas. it really seemed like the author was pretty far removed from teaching and that this book was more so made for general leadership. this book is definitely a better resource for students not teaching yet, but the wording seemed almost condescending at times. didn’t completely throw away everything, but i also didn’t take everything.
June 29, 2022
Where wasn't anything revelatory in this work, I think it is a potentially useful guide for students in teacher education programs and for relatively new teachers. As other reviewers have suggested, I think the creation of a binary of "great" vs. "poor" teachers oversimplifies the complexity of teaching, but that's just my take.
January 11, 2024
3.5 stars...while this is not my genre of choice (self-help books), I did find a lot of worthwhile material in this book. It is short (which I appreciate in the aforementioned self-help genre) and had lots of applicable nuggets of wisdom. Of course, I didn't agree with everything in the book, but I was grateful for the chance it gave me to reflect on (and hopefully improve) my teaching.
December 3, 2024
While the book presents some valuable insights, it largely offers a black-and-white perspective, neglecting the complexities and nuances of the grey areas. The author, a white European male in an authoritative position, fails to acknowledge his privileged standpoint. This omission undermines the credibility of his arguments and gives his writing an air of arrogance.
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