Rating: 
Summary: The First Days of School
Review: I have been teaching for 10 years. I have recommended this book to other teachers countless times. It should be required reading for all teachers. I suspect that most people who feel negative about this book are affronted by the idea that someone who has put a lot of basic and good ideas together in a book has made so much money, or they may need more help in the classroom than can be provided by any book.
Rating:
Summary: The First Days of School
Review: A must have for every teacher whether new or experienced. This is the one book that I take home every summer to reread. Buy it for yourself or for your student teacher!
Rating: 
Summary: A fairly rudimentary book about classroom management.
Review: Hopefully any teacher with imagination would know a great deal of what Wong has put in writing in this book. The authors almost lost me in the first chapter by stating that school is not fun. Puhleeeese! Of course WE know that school is about work and achievement, but any teacher worth their salt doesn't let the kids see it as WORK WORK WORK all the time. It should be about challenge, achievement and yes, fun. Let us teach the children that learning is, indeed, an enjoyable experience so that they will want to continue learning even after their formal schooling days are over. This isn't to say that there aren't some good sections in the book, there are. The chapter about effective teachers is good all around advice that bears repeating, although I would caution any teacher about starting class with a self-serving pompous speech about themselves as Wong describes on page 111. Oh, and by the way (this is a nit) Mr. Wong, you are wrong about denim, at least in my district. Denim skirts and jackets are totally ok for elementary school teachers (NOT JEANS) - after all we have to be dressed in hands-on type of clothes. If I showed up in a suit it would be ruined after my first recess duty. Get real.
Rating:
Summary: very useful indeed.
Review: I have read the book but I am interested in finding a copy of the video tape on "how to be an effective teacher" by Mr. Wong if anyone has an address or even a phone number for Mr. Wong or where I can purchase the tapes please let me know. Thanking you in advance.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't believe the hype
Review: Don't let the five star reviews fool you - no book is perfect. My first frustration with this book was that it is definitely geared towards public school teachers and the elementary grades. While this obviously has its audience and its place, as a high school teacher in an independent school, I wish I'd known that before I ordered it. Other than that, I felt as though I'd been promised specificity and gotten nothing but vague generalizations. Other than very strict instructions on shaking the students' hands the first day of school, I felt as though it was an introduction. Don't do fun activities, set down classroom rules! - they say. Okay, I say, give me some examples of classroom rules! Unfortunately, they don't. And as for the admonition that school should not be fun - you've got to be kidding me. I'm a teacher, not a drill instructor. Lighten up. If you've read "The Shopping Mall High School", you'll be alarmed at their students as consumers model, which seems outdated and dangerous. Their examples of teachers using the ideal of success as a motivation are well-intentioned, but disingenuous. I'm not trying to sell my students an education. I'd target this book's audience not as *every* teacher, but as public school, elementary grade teachers with five to ten years of experience.
Rating:
Summary: A great tool.
Review: My friend, a teacher, found this book a great tool. She has a group of students labeled with ADD and also used a book, The ADD & ADHD DIET, to help her learn more about how to cope with the problem and advise parents. She found both books a great help in improving her classroom.
Rating: 
Summary: condescending,shallow pep-talk
Review: I ordered this book, having been suckered by all of the five star reviews, thinking it would actually have some useful techniques to share. What I got instead was an overblown, vague and insulting polemic. The Wongs are scornful of teachers who plan "activities" for their classes,(never defining what constitutes an activity)and seem to advocate classrooms where teachers do nothing but supervise children's "work".There is even an anecdote about a supposedly successful teacher who was absent one day and was not even missed until the end of the day because his students had so diligently spent the day working. Do we really want to turn our students into automatons and completely eliminate teachers? I also feel that as a former parent education teacher I must express how appalled I was by the example Harry Wong gave of parental encouragement. As a pre-schooler he was told repeatedly by his parents, relatives and neighbors that he would be a doctor when he grew up, as all of his uncles were. Not only a doctor, but a brain surgeon,"the ultimate of all doctors" as Mr.Wong puts it. This is a method of encouragement that Mr.Wong actually seems to advocate. I understand that he was trying to make a larger point about expectations, but like much else in this book, the good things he has to say tend to be lost in overstatement and narrow opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Helping my college students get off to a good start teaching
Review: I teach college students who are preparing to go into the field of education. Recently, I showed the video series about the "First Day of School",and we also review the book. The next day I got this very enthusiastic phone call from one of my students. He was teaching his first day of school. He had 20 very eager and energetic first graders. He immediately applied the opening procedures, such as how to take down their chairs and sit at their desk. He was so excited that he actually called me from the classroom to tell me how glad he was that I shared the book and the video with our class. It gave me a great deal of pleasure when he called me to tell me of his success in the classroom. We also wrote a short paper on HOW WILL YOU "OWN IT". The papers were great and I was thrilled on how the class got the message of starting their teaching careers. Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom with all of us.
Rating: 
Summary: An inspirational must-read; geared for elementary teachers
Review: I have been teaching high school math for 10 years, and I immediately fell in love with the book after a quick glance at its contents, enthusiastic presentation, and excellent ideas. I am slightly disappointed that it is mostly geared for teachers of younger students; for example, it suggests writing a personal letter to each family and visiting each family on your student roster before the school year begins, a virtual impossibility in the high school setting. (Of course, it is the spirit of this suggestion that matters most). I was unable to put this book down and I am very excited about starting off the upcoming school year. I wish I had a teacher with the wisdom of Wong & Wong on my staff; I would love to be able to share/mentor with them on an ongoing basis. I recommend you buy it and try it out - a few suggestions at a time.
Rating:
Summary: A must for all teachers! Fabulous!
Review: This book is an absolute must for all beginning (and experienced) teachers! Practical and thought-provoking. I wish all teachers had a copy!
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