Teaching Outside the Box: How to Grab Your Students By Their Brains

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
From seating plans to Shakespeare, Teaching Outside the Box offers practical strategies that will help both new teachers and seasoned veterans create dynamic classroom environments where students enjoy learning and teachers enjoy teaching. This indispensable book is filled with no-nonsense advice, checklists, and handouts as well as

A step-by-step plan to make the first week of school a success
Approaches for creating a positive discipline plan
Methods for motivating students, especially reluctant readers
Strategies for successful classroom management
Suggestions for creating and grading student portfolios

Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Excellent, pragmatic approaches for building a classroom September 10, 2005
71 out of 72 found this review helpful

I've already used some of the methods I found in Ms. Johnson's book, and share much of her general philosophy of working with kids from difficult backgrounds. Even after 10 years of being fairly successful at teaching "at-risk" kids, I found that seeing the logic and reasoning of her approach on the page clued me in to many of the principles behind a successful classroom which I already used, but never saw fully articulated on the page. It sounds a bit bizarre, but I now have a better understanding of the "hows and whys" of what I do from reading her work. These are the tips that you didn't get in college regarding working with challenging older kids; it's both an intellectual and visceral approach to teaching that will help you avoid many confrontations with kids before they ever happen, and give you the understanding of how to handle the battles you can't avoid. Holding kids to high standards of behavior sends the message to your students that you believe that they are capable great things, but it can take years to build the skills a teacher needs to get to that point. This book is the blueprint for building a successful classroom.

There is also a lot here about understanding kids that have to return everyday to very difficult lives at home. Many teachers of kids with tough home lives fail because they never really understood the lives of the young people they were dealing with. Understanding the reasoning and emotions behind unreasonable classroom behavior is the key to minimizing it and surviving as a teacher, and this book reminds us that these behaviors have roots in what these kids have to go through everyday. There is much here to remind you of the positive and long-lasting effects a caring teacher can have, and that the balance of positive reinforcement with a tough determination for high standards is key to getting the best out of our kids.

I've always been struck by the fact that a greater community hasn't been built by the teachers that work with challenging students, but maybe that comes from the fact that we're cut from a different cloth. The unfortunate aspect of this lack of community is that many of us build our approaches from scrap, taking the best of what we see in our coworkers, and trying methods that we come up with on the fly. There's just so little accumulated knowledge on our curious line of work passed down from one generation of experienced teacher to the next. Also, there are many aspects of working with tough kids that will never make it into the education school textbooks, a manifestation of the great and ridiculous divide between educational research and classroom practice (don't even let me get started on that topic). The helpfulness of educational academia's theories can be said to be directly correlated to the years they've spent teaching in difficult circumstances. You may be able to quantify the number of kids that respond to a reading program that your district will never have the money to buy (and you will never have time to teach), but they will never fully comprehend the necessity of learning to deliver a warm and sincere compliment, or chillingly-cold stare, at just the right moment. This book delivers the goods to those that wish to help the kids that most people have given up on, to work for little more than the knowledge that they did something that needed and deserved to be done.

5 out of 5 stars

A Godsend Not Just For Educators But Also For The General Public! April 6, 2006
42 out of 43 found this review helpful

I followed Ms. Johnson's story ever since the movie based on her books and experience, DANGEROUS MINDS came out in 1995. I have had different careers, including secondary teaching. I have taught students with the same characteristics that she describes in MY POSSE DON'T DO HOMEWORK, GIRLS AT THE BACK OF THE CLASS and TEACHING OUTSIDE THE BOX.

Out of all of the resources about methods of teaching, TEACHING OUTSIDE THE BOX tops my list of the greatest. 95 percent of the other resources like Harry Wong's THE FIRST DAYS OF SCHOOL always assume that every teacher has no more than 20 students in the class and that most students are highly motivated and respectful of all of their teachers. Ms. Johnson, on the other hand, addresses the "what if your methods do not work"? She describes endless specific examples of what exactly a teacher could do if a teacher has more than 40 students in a class and it seems like no one is listening or on task.

While Ms. Johnson offers some of her fabulous lesson plans like on ROMEO AND JULIET, she also explains psychological theories of possibilities why difficult kids and even difficult adults behave the way they do.

I also love how this terrific resource includes the letter that Ms. Johnson sends to all of her students. She further printed actual letters from kids and adults asking her for her advice, which I found both entertaining and tear jerking. The question that 10 year old "Big Momma" wrote and Ms. Johnson's reply was hilarious!

Even if you are not a teacher, counselor, or other educator, I highly recommend TEACHING OUTSIDE THE BOX. I wish that I would have had this book when I worked in business management because then I would understand more why some adults behave the way they do; Ms Johnson's theories have lots of implications for working with adults. The chapter on "Twenty Years From Now" will bring back memories of your life experiences for anyone, no matter how old you are!

AN ABSOLUTE MUST READ!!

Oh, and just yesterday, I contacted Ms Johnson via e-mail after discovering her website. I was not expecting her to respond because she must receive e-mails and letters from all over the world. Ms Johnson responded with just amazing advice! This shows her ongoing dedication!

5 out of 5 stars

A gem for teachers old and new! December 12, 2005
22 out of 23 found this review helpful

This book is a must for beginning teachers and for pros who need new ideas. It combines street smart practicality with the creative thinking we need to reach kids today. I plan to use it immediately in my university level teacher training courses and recommend it highly to the teachers I work with in the field. We do need to teach outside the box to make education meaningful for today's adolescents. LouAnne Johnson understands that and her book will make it possible for more teachers to get there.

4 out of 5 stars

New teacher and soon to be teachers September 30, 2005
16 out of 18 found this review helpful

This book was recommended by a professor in one of my classes for new teachers because she felt it had lots of common sense information and advise new teachers need to be successful. The author also wrote Dangerous Minds and seems to have a realistic take on teaching. I like her distiction between three basic flavors teachers come in - super, excellent and good. Being a super teacher may not be the best for all because throwing everything you have into each and everyday all day and into the night can lead to burnout. Johnson suggests that maybe aiming for excellent or good might provide a better balance to sustain a teacher's moral, motivation and job satisfaction because they are not giving everything up for the job; they have something left for themselves and their families. Strategies is a big word in education and this book is full of what I felt were useful ideas for new and experienced teachers covering everything from how to have a successful first day of school to effective classroom environments and planning ideas. I have not read it cover to cover, but jumped from chapter to chapter that interested me, but seems like a good book to have with me on my first day and beyond.

5 out of 5 stars

Review May 3, 2006
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

In her book Teaching Outside the Box: How to Grab Your Students by Their Brains, LouAnne Johnson gives a lot of helpful tips to new teachers and gives some ideas to more seasoned teachers that might help improve their style.
As great as this book is it dose have its flaws. Through out much of the book it seems to be aimed at primary education as apposed to secondary education. Some of the ideas about lessons and seating aren't practical in high school. The language is easy to understand and to read through. This book might be a little under some more seasoned teachers. This book is perfect for the college student looking to become a primary educator but it is also good for anyone wondering if teaching is for them.

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