Professional Development Books Worth Reading {Haley from The McGrew Crew}

The idea behind the book "Teaching with Love & Logic" is that when teaching kids to behave responsibly, you must use a combination of these core two things....Love and logic. When we teach our students in a loving way that their actions (good or bad) will have consequences, we can better prepare them to make intelligent decisions. The philosophy in this book suggests that a way we can do this is by giving students control of making their own choices yet standing firm in how we as educators will respond.

A classic love and logic statement is, "I will be glad to help you when you ask in a respectful way." The educator has explained their willingness to give assistance, but has clearly stated what is expected from the student. 

Another idea behind the love and logic model is that not all poor decisions should result in the same consequence. In other words, the "punishment should fit the crime." 

The example that I use when discussing the ideas of this book is one taken straight from my 6th grade classroom several years ago. A student decided to throw a pencil across the room during the lesson. After thinking upon a consequence for this I decided to have him stay after school to help me sharpen 100+ pencils for our upcoming state testing. The action itself was fairly harmless (as no one was hurt) but needed an appropriate consequence. This was also a great chance for us to chat and maybe get to a deeper root cause for the misbehavior. 

"Children learn the best lessons when they're given a task and allowed to make their own choices (and fail) when the cost of failure is still small. Children's failures must be coupled with love and empathy from their parents and teachers."
—from the Love and Logic Fact Sheet