During my year-long tenure at an Indiana Title I high school, I noticed a few things that bothered me quite a bit. One of them was that nearly every teacher at my school, from the ones just setting off on their teaching career to the ones getting ready to sail into the sunset of retirement, shared a fatalistic attitude when it came to our students. Admittedly, teaching at my former school cannot be an easy task under the best of circumstances. Most of our kids came from poverty of some degree, the majority also spoke first language other than English. It’s a nice idea to design a curriculum that is supposed to immerse these young people in their new language, but I wonder if anyone has considered how difficult it must be to attempt to learn English (starting with a whole new alphabet) while trying to understand lesson content with nary a support structure in sight. Yes, we had school assistants, but few got as involved as I did, and some preferred to not get involved at all while their charges struggled to understand what the teacher was trying to explain.
When the biggest help you can expect is a dictionary and extended time to give a test, as a teacher you must get frustrated beyond belief. However, is that really when you should simply throw in the towel, mutter to yourself that it’s all pointless, anyway, and let the confused and lost run the show? Is it really fair to enter a classroom and exclaim after having met with your students only once or twice that “that’s how they are, they won’t get it and they don’t want to try, let’s just get through the year”? What I saw were teachers and assistants attempting to deal with these kids by punishing every single bit of “bad” behavior, which often led to the kid disappearing from school for a while, not supporting or praising wanted behaviors. One teacher collected huge reams of paper completed during class, only to have these papers disappear forever. When I asked him why he didn’t return them, he replied that he felt kids would try to cheat their way to a better grade by making corrections at that point. In America, students write in pencil all through high school, which is ridiculous and certainly plays into this teacher’s fears.
Sadly, because of attitudes like these, many of my students ended up being left behind. They couldn’t learn from their mistakes because they never saw what they even were, and they couldn’t figure out how to ‘be’ better because the ratio of punishment to praise leaned heavily towards the former. This is why I wish books like “The Power of Praise” would be required reading in more schools, especially ones like mine, where teachers and students would benefit from a proper pep talk! *stick it out until the end of the review for a chance to win your own copy!
“The Power of Praise” contains 23 straight-forward tips, collected by Mr. Rogers throughout his teaching career. They are divided into three sections: The Philosophy of Praise (the whys and hows), The Mechanics of Praise (specific applications), and The Efficiency of Praise (or, how to not spend all day writing peppy notes). Any teacher anywhere will be able to find at least one or two points that can be applied to their students. Perhaps it won’t change the entire classroom, but I can guarantee it will have an impact on at least some of your students. As he did in the previous book, Mr. Rogers sprinkles plenty of anecdotes throughout the text to give real-life examples on how to apply the 23 secrets. The book concludes with a list of questions to allow the reader to reflect on the text, quite useful as the book is a slender, quick read.
As in the previous book, there are lovely illustrations by Sutthiya Lertyongphati, as well. Unfortunately, sometimes the size of the example pages is too small to properly convey the information without the use of a magnifying lens. In one example that is meant to illustrate self-evaluation by the students by means of different-colored pens, the black-and-white illustration spectacularly fails to make exactly this point. I also found a few spelling errors – it’s a gift and a curse.
On the plus side, aside from the useful information, there is Mr. Rogers’ attitude, which is always decidedly positive. It is easy to tell that he cares for his students and is highly committed to enable them to be successful. His no-nonsense writing style leaves even the reader feeling empowered and supported. I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a method to support students in a positive, empowering manner or needs to reconnect to the reason why they wanted to become a teacher in the first place. Perhaps this book won’t fix all the issues you have at school, but it will help.
“The Power of Praise” is self-published. I received a review copy from the author in exchange for a review. All opinions expressed are my own, unless otherwise stated.
Giveaway! Two lucky readers have the chance to win a copy of “The Power of Praise” on this blog! Simply leave a comment below this post and tell me why you would like one. This giveaway ends on March 31, 2020. Winners will be notified by April 3, 2020.
Stop and Smell the Pages 
Fifteen years ago I read a book in grad school that talked about making our schools and classrooms places students wanted to be. Basically, you have to build relationships and get to know your students, post pics from their Friday night football game or band concert. Be interested in them as a student! I feel like this book goes hand-in-hand with that philosophy. I would love the opportunity to read it and include nuggets from the book into trainings I do with our teachers.
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