Taylor the Teacher

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Teaching with Love and Logic by Jim Fay and David Funk is a fantastic book. I read it every school year. It’s one of the few books on teaching that isn’t 80% full of crap.

Whenever I implement the ways of thinking embodied in Teaching with Love and Logic, my classroom becomes a better place, I become a better teacher (and person), and as if those things weren’t enough, I go home happy and stress-free at the end of the day.

Here’s a glance from one of the introductory chapters:

People learn from their own decisions… All effective systems allow people to learn from the results of their own decisions. (p. 26)

Here are the three basic rules of Love and Logic, with what I consider to be the best examples provided in this chapter:

Use enforceable limits

I knew one teacher who, for years, tried to order kids around about turning in their assignments. One day she discovered that it just didn’t create the desired effect and she decided to experiment with the Love and Logic approach to setting this limit.

The next day the students saw two wire baskets on the teacher’s desk. There was a sign on each one. one sign read, “Papers to be graded tonight.” The other sign read, “Papers to be graded during the summer.”

STUDENTS: What’s this?

TEACHER: Just what it says. I’ll be grading all the on-time papers tonight and the late papers during the summer.

STUDENTS: If you grade the late papers during the summer, how are we supposed to graduate?

TEACHER: I don’t know.

The teacher reports that the number of on-time papers increased dramatically when she quit telling the kids how to run their lives and started telling them how she was going to run hers. (p. 27)

Provide choices within limits.

The name of the game in teaching is getting kids to cooperate. Love and Logic teachers agree that they get the best cooperation when they remember to provide a lot of choices throughout the day.

“Today you have your choice of working alone or working with a friend. You decide.” (p.30)

Apply consequences with empathy

The effective teacher administers consequences with empathy and understanding, as opposed to anger and lecture.

Children learn from their mistakes when: they experience the consequences of their mistakes and adults in their environment provide empathy.

Bad choices have natural consequences. If David fails to wear a coat, he gets cold. If Jan misses the school bus, she stays home with an unexcused absence for the day.

Adults are tempted to scold and reprimand, but may be surprised to learn that children actually learn best from consequences when adults empathize:

“I’m so sorry you’re cold, David.”

“What a bummer that you missed an after-school party on the day you were absent, Jan.”

If adults reprimand them, children may transform sorrow over their choice into anger with the adult — and the lesson may be lost. If adults express sorrow, children have a significant learning opportunity. (p. 37)

Consequences + Empathy = Learning

There are so many tips in this book that make sense. Remembering that we are supposed to be teaching them is a big part of this. I try to think, “How can this student learn from this mistake?” Usually, it involves stepping out of my own way.