I admit that I'm an anachronism here: I still believe that schools are, or at least should be, scholastic enterprises instead of delivery points for social skills, medical treament, and psychological care.

I further believe that a school is, or should be, run by adults (who have presumably learned something worth passing on) for the benefit of students and ultimately society as a whole, at least to the best of our abilities, and that this generally ought to be done along practical lines, instead of ideological ones.

So much for my own biases. Let me digress briefly: Have you ever asked psychologists how they deal with everyone else's problems all day long?

They say that they're supposed to be mature enough and emotionally stable enough to handle it.

I believe that there is an analogy here to the teacher-student relationship:

I believe that the teacher should be mature enough to provide support and empathy to the class WITHOUT asking the class to be a significant source of emotional support for the teacher in return.

So you can imagine my horror at seeing the following sentence on page 2 as a description of the authors' collective dream: "It invites young people to see an adult as a person who needs just as much nurturing and encouragement as they do."

The authors actually recommend that teachers deliberately train students to be co-dependent in this manner!

I confess that I have not managed to force myself to finish reading this book. I have read as much as I could, and I have rated it higher than my experience with it justifies on the chance that perhaps the rest of the book is better than the parts which have impinged upon my consciousness.

What I have read, however, is either (a) covered in every other book on the same topic or (b) weak, sappy, platitudinal, or self-contradictory.

However, in the hope that it will be useful to you, and based upon what I have read and/or skimmed, I believe that what the authors want from the world is this:

(1) Teachers should not "act controlling" or mean. You need to be in control (otherwise you won't be able to teach), but don't let it warp your personality. In other words, be nice.

(1.1) Whenever possible, teachers should let the students be in charge of setting up classroom rules, deciding punishments for their peers, and even teaching students who fall behind.

(2) Teachers should encourage a sense of community and teamwork in the classroom. They recommend class meetings at length, although that is only one mechanism that could be used to achieve this goal.

In my opinion, this goal doesn't make much sense unless your students spend half or more of their time in the same group [whether or not all of that time is with you is not relevant]: no one can truly "feel a part of" each of seven different class-communities, plus a lunch-break-community and possibly a sports-team-community and a service-club-community.

(3) Teachers should always be emotionally connected to their students as unique, valuable, cherished individuals.

Within reasonable limits, I hope that we all do this. But unlike the authors, I believe that there is a time and place for the teacher as the impartial imparter of knowledge and trainer of skills.

I don't know how the teacher who faces 150 new students each semester will manage both the authors' ideals AND their curriculum content, but the authors are strong on the point about feeling loving. One does tend to get the idea that actual content isn't as important to the authors, so long as their social agenda is forwarded.

I'm afraid that I can't recommend this book. In particular, I recommend that NEW teachers avoid it.

If you like the ideals, then there may be some value to reading the book, so that you can evaluate your classroom arrangements from a different perspective -- but NOT until after you have a good handle on day-to-day management and have learned about your own strengths and weaknesses (which usually takes a few years).