Linda Metcalf, PhD is a former teacher, school counselor and coordinator for safe and drug free schools in Mansfield ISD, Texas, USA. She consults with schools throughout the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK. Linda Metcalf PhD is Director and Professor of the Graduate Counseling Program at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, TX. She can be reached at lmetcalf@txwes.edu for training invitations.
Linda Metcalf, PhD is a former teacher, school counselor and coordinator for safe and drug free schools in Mansfield ISD, Texas, USA. She consults with schools throughout the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK. Linda Metcalf PhD is Director and Professor of the Graduate Counseling Program at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, TX. She can be reached at lmetcalf@txwes.edu for training invitations.
Teaching Toward Solutions has been created for teachers to help
improve pupil behaviour, grades, parental support and staff morale
using methods with a positive emphasis.
Techniques and strategies are suggested that give teachers positive
ways of working with pupils to handle behavioural issues and poor
results. The focus is on solutions to problems rather than the
problems themselves and thus encourages teachers to identify
children''s abilities and strengths in order to build on these
examples of success.
Separated into sections the text covers creating a motivational
atmosphere, stopping behavioural problems, meeting with parents,
discipline and creating opportunities for pupils to improve. The
techniques are well supported by case studies and practical
examples to aid understanding.
Newly qualified and student teachers will find this an ideal source
of advice and this may also be a useful source of new ideas for
more experienced teachers.Headteacher Update
Teaching Toward Solutions, written for teachers at any stage of
their career, was initially meant for American classrooms. The
spelling has not been anglicised and neither has the terminology -
hence students aturn in' their homework and are aseniors' rather
than sixth formers. Some of the suggested solutions for getting
difficult students on side come across as a little too sugary for
the cynical British palate. An example is given of a teacher
passing a disruptive student a note saying, aYou remind me of a
bright student I had a few years ago ... he wasn't quite sure how
to show me his abilities at first, but I knew he had lots of
potential. Whenever you are ready to show me, I'm here.a But some
interesting strategies are suggested for dealing with
confrontational students. Examples are given of how changing tack
or doing something unpredictable can often change the attitude of a
challenging student and how letting the student know that the
teacher is committed to solving the problem can work better than
focusing on letting them know who is in charge. Innovative ideas
are presented for raising the self-esteem of low-achieving
students. There are also methods suggested for a teacher to analyse
their own teaching practice to get better results. The whole focus
of the book is on coming up with strategies for solutions to help
classes and individual students to succeed where they have failed
before.SecEd Magazine Christophe LeTrent,
In my own mind there is a vast difference between training and
teaching a for me teaching is imparting facts and figures whereas
training involves both teaching and active learning, and Linda
Metcalfe's book on moving toward solutions in my mind embraces
both. So it is with great enthusiasm that I review a book that
actually addresses the solutions to ateaching challenges' appearing
more and more regularly within the schooling system. The fact that
Linda has understood that everyone's behaviour is as a result of
many different sources is encouraging. Trying to put all children
or adults into one learning box is going to ask for challenges. NLP
has demonstrated capably that our behaviour is directly linked to
what each individual perceives of the world through the five senses
and more importantly through our languaging. In the current system
in the rush to get from A-Z in a school curriculum, many teachers
are oblivious to the fact that their teaching and languaging
methods are not empowering the students to the joy of learning.
Thus having a manual presented by Linda Metcalfe as asolution'
orientated is welcome and timely for those teachers who are
dedicated and serious to ensuring their teaching practices are
reaching the majority of students within their classroom. As a
trainer for ademonstrating how to learn more effectively' the book
holds some excellent concepts that even I had not considered when
it comes to behavioural mechanisms demonstrated by my participants.
And what is more important is the encouragement Linda has written
about in terms of persistence of areaching out' to the students.
The sure sign of a successful person in any field. The role plays,
the scenarios and case studies are all well written and amply
demonstrate the need for the world of education to become more in
alignment with personal development rather than just imparting of
facts and figures which have little impact in terms of life skills.
Working towards solutions is leading by example and also having the
compassion to atouch, move and inspire' another into their
greatness through their own abilities to learn effectively. This
book allows the teacher and student to take responsibility for
their own actions and reactions whilst at the same time developing
rapport, creativity, communication par excellence and much much
more. This is not a bedtime story a however in terms of those who
are serious about understanding how to create the best possible
solution for those challenges whether training or teaching a this
book is an enjoyable read offering suggestions and points to
consider that will literally allow both the teacher/trainer and
student to fulfill their potential at an even greater
level.Kathleen Ginn, Speaker, Trainer, Author on Rapid Sensory
Learning & Conscious Creation
Packed with down-to-earth examples and genuine case studies,
Teaching Towards Solutions offers a refreshing, hopeful and
original approach to student behaviour. It's based on a simple yet
profound idea: notice, and ask students to notice, what's happening
when they are behaving well a then recreate the conditions. Sounds
easy, but the approach requires you to view problems, pupils and
even yourself differently. Fortunately, the book shows you how by
providing all the language tools you'll need to turn yourself and
your students around. The result? Transformed attitudes,
relationships and behaviour. Linda Metcalf's extensive experience
as a family counsellor and teacher shines through. The method she
describes with such conviction and detail avoids binding systems
and restrictive rules. It liberates teachers to be creative and
calls on students to use their self-knowledge to devise personal
behaviour strategies. Teaching Towards Solutions provides an
uplifting and motivating approach to the most difficult aspect of
any teacher's job. Read it!Paul Ginnis, author, The Teacheras
Toolkit
This is a book packed with wisdom, detailed approaches to conflict
resolution and ahistorical'accounts drawn together to illuminate
the path to the successful management of behaviour and change. I
found it highly readable, revelatory, in parts movingly funny and
yet all the time studiously observant and convincing, defining the
exasperations that educators, parents and managers of people face
when dealing with the assertive and disenchanted young. Linda
Metcalf presents a joyously eclectic celebration of good practice
which she rationalises into atowards solutions' systems, defining
its success according to her highly intelligent and optimistic
end-vision. As a parent and teacher I will take away bags of tips,
structures and good practical ideas and my own thinking about
behaviour management will certainly never be the same again.Garry
Burnett author Learning to Learn and Parents First
This is a well detailed with plenty of real life examples of how a
solution focused approach can help improve behaviour. This approach
wrong foots students who are so used to having their problems
analysed, by finding the exceptions to the problem, new
interventions are generated. It provides user friendly scripts as
aaide memoirs' to help the practitioner get started. It provides
throughout the tools to enable school staff to explore a novel
approach to aproblem solvinga through finding the exceptions - that
is when the problem is less severe. The model enables learners and
parents to become part of the solution rather than seeing
themselves as part of the problem. Because of our over reliance on
believing that the only way to solve a problem is to focus
exclusively on the problem we miss those small signs of
improvements that happen constantly. Change is inevitable, but it
it can be slow and small, and if we are not careful we miss signs
of the solution because we are only looking at the problem. This
book offers school practitioners activities to experiment with and
ways to prevent the child being seen as the problem, the problem is
the problem, not children. One of the best practical accounts of
Solution Focussed Interventions for school staff available. An
excellent book that shows forcefully why afighting fire with
water', is always the bets solution. This book provides the tools
to help school staff acatch em being gooda, a sound philosophy that
needs practical muscle to make it work. Teaching towards Solutions,
provides the muscle Solution Focussed approaches in Education are
much talked about, this book has something for school managers,
classroom practitioners as well individual students. A book for the
staff room reference shelf.Rob Long, Chartered Educational
Psychologist, Education Works
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