The Classroom Troubleshooter

Luke Lawson is a teacher and administrator in Vancouver, B.C.

Most teachers complain about the excessive amount of work that must be
completed in and out of the classroom. This brief and rather disjointed
book provides teachers with worksheets and strategies for dealing with
“the paper chase,” discipline, evaluation, the learning and language
dilemma, and reflection.

The author makes some valid points (e.g., detentions are a waste of
time, and teachers should instead sit down and talk with the offending
students), but he is off the mark on others, as when he suggests that
“the only place students don’t feel pressure about grades is within
their peer group; from the perspective of the peer group, everyone is in
same boat and it’s everyone against the system.” This is simply not
true. Students do compete with each other, especially in high school,
when scholarships, rankings, post-secondary options, honour rolls, and
recruitments are often on the table.

Teachers new to the profession may find the strategies a good starting
place, but most experienced teachers should have effective systems
already in place. This reviewer has been in the profession for 13 years
and found many of the suggestions rather elementary and simplistic (they
were dealt with in teacher education). Simply put, teachers need to
understand that there are 60- to 70-hour work weeks (and, for that very
reason, as many as 12 weeks of holiday per annum); if they are not
prepared to deal with all the demands, they should find another job.