William Glasser

William Glasser
Choice Theory and The Quality School

Overview of Glasser's Model People, including school children, have four basic needs. Freedom, Power/Achievement, Fun, and Love/Belonging. If all these needs are not met on a daily basis, people begin to feel out-of-sync. They are unable to make the best possible choices for their situations. Glasser also believes that quality curriculum, quality learning, and quality teaching are essential elements in classroom discipline. He encourages teachers to address their students’ basic needs through their curricular activities.

Assumptions

At any given moment, people are doing the best that they can do
Teachers can connect / bond with all their students
Students can control their own behavior

Instructional Implications

Students perform useful work
Students are asked to do the best that they can
Students use SIR, (self-evaluation, improvement, and repetition)
Students’ basic needs are satisfied in the classroom through the curriculum.

Teacher's Role

Plan curriculum to meet students’ basic needs
Stress student responsibility in making good choices
Do not accept any excuses
Require students to make value judgments about their misbehavior
Suggest alternatives to inappropriate behavior
Enforce reasonable consequences
Be persistent

Strengths

Teaches students decision-making as a life skill
Encourages students to do their best
Provides for consistent enforcement of rules and consequences
Prevents discipline problems
Stimulates a desire to learn

Possible Weaknesses

Teachers must plan curriculum in order to meet students basic needs
Teachers must present curriculum to students in a way that they can identify with the subject matter
Assumes teacher has control over curriculum decisions
Does not address severe mental, physical, or emotional disorders and exceptionalities

References

Handout from April Jeffers, Martha Knight, and Elizabeth Mautz from presentation given in CUI 650 on William Glasser. (2001).

Charles, C. M. (1991). William Glasser’s Noncoercive Discipline. In Building Classroom Discipline (pp. 180-195). New York : Longman.

Glasser, W. (1969). Schools Without Failure. New York: Harper & Row.

Glasser, W. (2001). The William Glasser Institute homepage. [Online].
Available http://www.wglasserinst.com [2001].

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