Characteristics of a Quality School

The following chart compares the Glasser Quality School with a more traditional school using a number of different parameters.  Fortunately most schools have long moved away from the traditional model depicted below.

	QUALITY SCHOOL	TRADITIONAL SCHOOL
THEORY	Choice Theory	External Control Theory
MANAGEMENT	Lead Management	Boss Management
CONTROL	Internal	External
NEED FOCUS	needs of the whole school community	boss’s needs
FOCUS OF CHANGE	the whole system including teacher and teaching methods	students
ATMOSPHERE	confidence, trust	fear, insecurity
	comfortable	strained
	open discussion of quality	sets tasks and standards
	invites ideas on improving learning situations	no discussion of teacher’s methods
	teacher shows or models job	teacher tells what to do
	aims at need satisfaction	aims at silence, control
	attempts to entertain	outlaws entertainment
RELATIONSHIP	friendly, involvement, “professional friendship”	lukewarm-cold, distant, critical, “professional distance”
	equality, first names	superiority, titles
	co-operative	adversarial (competition)
	teacher as co-learner	teacher as expert
	teacher as facilitator of learning	teaching activity done “to” students
	use of self-disclosure	arms length
	caring	coercion
	emphasis on “we”, community	emphasis on “I”, ego-centricism
STUDENTS AND LEARNING	see students as wanting to learn	see students as unwilling to learn
	use of peer tutors, community	teacher as source of learning
	co-operative learning groups	individual learning
	class meetings regularly	course content focus
	makes effort to know each student	tends to get to know the brighter students and the most disruptive
SUBJECT MATTER	emphasis on using knowledge and learning skills	emphasis on rote learning of knowledge
	useful	unrelated to real life
	help students put material in their quality world	teach bare content
TIME	take time needed to learn	meet time deadlines
	initially requires more time	always requires time
EVALUATION	internal evaluation	external evaluation
	aim for competence and quality	accept minimal standards
ATTITUDE TO MISBEHAVIOUR	sign of frustration	sign of malice
	frustration in school causes discipline problems	discipline problems cause frustration in school
	solve problems together	teacher deals with problems
	works at preventing problems	works at dealing with problems
	focus on need satisfaction	focus on punishment/reward/force
	focus on what to fix, future	focus on whose fault, policing, past
GRADES	always temporary	fixed
	based on quality	based on minimal standards
	used to empower	used as punishment/reward