P.R.A.I.S.E.: Effectively Guiding Student Behavior

by Beth Ackerman

This guidebook not only provides general behavior management advice but also offers tips for handling the challenging student from a Christian perspective, coupled with tried-and-true research. This informative book covers the keys to successful classroom management using the acronym being proactive, using reinforcements, assessing and analyzing the intent of misbehavior, being sincere, and empowering students and the Holy Spirit in them.

Genres: Education

35 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Dr. Beth Ackerman’s passion for children with disabilities is evident in her professional career and studies. Her master’s degree is in Special Education from Lynchburg College. She has a postgraduate professional license from the Virginia Department of Education which endorses her to teach elementary education K-8, learning disabilities, emotional disabilities, mental retardation, and administration and supervision K-12. Her doctorate degree is in Administration and Supervision from the University of Virginia. She taught students with disabilities for three years before becoming a principal for six years at a private day school for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities. She has over a decade of experience in working with children with learning disabilities, mental retardation, and emotional disabilities as a behavior specialist, family support provider, teacher, and administrator. She currently teaches undergraduate and graduate level special education courses and serves as the Associate Dean of the School Education at Liberty University.

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 40 page textbook that was pretty much a waste of time, ink and paper. Bonfire scheduled for May 2019.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick and easy read about how to effectively guide student behavior. I did not agree with some of the phrases the author used as they called students "challenging students" or problem students instead of saying "students with challenging behaviors." The students are not problems, but their behaviors can be. The author should have worded this better. Otherwise the Acronym P.R.A.I.S.E. is effective in remembering how teachers should guide student behavior and biblical insights to this method are also included.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a good book to read for those that may need some information about classroom management. It is a quick read and while it does have some good information it could go more in depth about the subject. I would recommend it though because it is such a quick read.

[☠︎︎༒︎✞︎ ѕℓιм ☠︎︎༒︎✞︎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is alright, was it helpful maybe twice, I didn't really like it. I had to read this book for my " Classroom Management for Teachers" class.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

A weakly-supported vaguely evangelical rehash of other people's good work, cast into a brief pamphlet and gussied up with a Christian-sounding acronym. Another ridiculous product of the Christian marketing economy, in which nothing is acceptable unless it's Christianish, and anything is awesome if you slap a Jesus fish on it.

I bought this in English because its Spanish translation is required reading for the ACSI Latin America teaching certification course. I suppose this book fills its particular niche well: a stop-gap for underprepared teachers in private Christian schools. That is, this book is better than nothing. Certainly it's better than the surrounding educational system many teachers in Latin America are used to, where smacking students around is considered acceptable classroom management. I guess giving kids tokens to reward good behavior is a novel idea for people coming out of public schools in this region.

But anyone who is going to undertake serious teacher training (the certification is a 3-term, 12-month process) really ought to be dealing with better resources than this. Ackerman just snagged ideas from The First Days of School and other well-known texts, summarized them, and sprinkled in a (very few) Bible references with sketchy connections to the idea.

So two stars for at least stealing ideas from a few reputable sources. But really, there's no reason this book should exist.