William Glasser

Prior to being allowed to enter the profession, prospective teachers should be asked to talk with a group of friendly students for at least half an hour and be able to engage them in an interesting conversation about any subject the prospective teacher wants to talk about.

What students lack in school is an intellectual relationship or conversation with the teacher.

In a Glasser Quality School there is no such thing as a closed book test. Students are told to get out their notes and open their books. There is no such thing as being forbidden to ask the teacher or another student for help.

This is at the heart of all good education, where the teacher asks students to think and engages them in encouraging dialogues, constantly checking for understanding and growth.

Every single major push in education has made it worse and right now it’s really bad because everything we’ve done is de-humanizing education. It’s destroying the possibility of the teacher and the student having a warm, friendly, intellectual relationship.

We can teach a lot of things, but if the teacher can’t relate by talking to a group of friendly students, he’ll never be a competent teacher.