Being Good: Rethinking Classroom Management and Student Discipline

There's a certain irony that adults are clamoring for character education in our classrooms when they themselves bear responsibility for actions ranging from war, pollution, and racist speech to failing to use their turn signal. The increasing emphasis of civic leaders and policymakers on teaching for character and morality has a familiar but subtle undertone: kids these days are out of control. The issues of character and discipline, of encouraging good behavior and improving bad behavior, writes Steven Wolk, are "woven together like a double-helix strand of DNA."

Fortunately, in Being Good Wolk helps you decode the issues of character and discipline by offering practical ideas and research-driven theories that not only promote democratic values in your teaching but also show you how to use those values when your classroom management skills are tested. Wolk gives you examples of how practicing teachers evaluate and remedy "bad" behavior in ways that promote citizenship, encourage self-discipline, and motivate students toward learning and self-betterment. Plus he shows you how to prevent bad behavior by establishing a shared value system in your classroom that encourages students to monitor their own behavior.

From integrating character and curriculum to engage critical literacy skills, to designing seating plans for your students that encourage cooperation and positive interaction, Being Good shows you how the powerful connections between character, content, and classroom structure shape the individual emerging inside each of your students. So let the politicians outside your classroom talk about how "bad" kids are these days. With Steven Wolk on your side, you'll prove them wrong.

Steven Wolk has taught third through eighth grade. After teaching third, fourth, and fifth grade at The Foundations School, a Chicago public school, he is now Assistant Professor of Teacher Education at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago.