Every Teacher Should Read This Book!

One of the best books around to help teachers communicate better with children. Even though I bought this to help my teaching, I don't know how I would have made it through the last few years with my three young children without this book. The skills presented in this very readable book are very useful for improving classroom management too and helping children that live with a lot of stress especially in the urban environment. The clear and compelling anecdotes bring Faber and Mazlich's ideas to life!

Every teacher, experienced and new, needs this book!

After a frustrating first year of teaching at a junior high school, I was about ready to give up the teaching career all together. I picked up this book one evening because I liked the cartoon drawings in it (it looked like it would be fun to read). I couldn't put it down. I learned so many things that I cannot wait to use my second year of teaching. I especially appreciated the chapter on praising children. I never realized what a negative impact that too "straight-forward" praise (such as "You're so smart!") could have on a student. Now I look back when I was a kid, and I hated it when people would constantly say that to me, because I always felt like, "okay, i'm smart....so what?" I thought I wouldn't be allowed to make a mistake. Those types of teachers that would say things like, "oh, don't worry about that assignment/paper/project...you are smart..you can do it," well, that didn't make me feel any better. The best teachers I had were the ones that gave me specific examples of things that I was doing right in class.

Invaluable book guides and instructs in simple fashion.

We,parents are often overwhelmed with the responsibilites of raising the sweet things we call our children. We make it throught the strain of the sleepless years, the toddler tantrums, the preschool whys and then we realize we cannot dump our kids off in school and sigh with relief. We need to encourage life long learning. It will never end! Well, Faber and Mazlish continue to outline in this book, simple, sensible, aproaches to problemsolving and esteem building that will invigorate a child's desire to learn. This book is a continuation of How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. Getting away from the fussing, fighting and ranting with children becomes so easy when following their direct and simple outlines of how to carry on discussion. By encouraging active listening, the heart plays a bigger role in interacting with children than the sometimes ranting mouth. I highly recommend it !