Author: Paul D. White, Ron Arias
Binding: Hardcover
Published: 2007-03-27
ISBN: 0767924193
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

$19.95

White's Rules: Saving Our Youth One Kid at a Time
by: Paul D. White, Ron Arias

Editorial Review:

One heroic schoolteacher has saved hundreds of lives with unconditional love and zero tolerance for rule-breakers.

His students are the worst of the worst--drug addicts, gang members, and violent criminal offenders. They have flunked out or been thrown out of every other school they've attended. They may be the children of addicts, of abusers, or even of good parents, but they have one thing in common: they have been rejected by everyone except Paul White. With ten simple rules, he has helped hundreds of kids turn their lives around.
"I can't remember when I've been this happy. Since I came here I'm getting right with my family and friends, I'm off the drugs and staying out of trouble. I'm doing really well in school and I've got a job."
--Kathy, fifteen, West Valley student, former crystal meth user
"He never gives up on you."
--Roger, seventeen

Among students, they're the worst of the worst: chronic truants, drunks, drug addicts, even violent criminals. Some haven't been to school for months, even years. Some have spent a year or more locked up for gang-related offenses and felony assaults. All of them, it seems, are on the short list of life's early losers.
Enter Paul White, the teacher whose combination of unconditional love and unbreakable rules has changed, and sometimes saved, the lives of the most troubled students in Detroit, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles. When they walk through the door of his one-room high school, the West Valley Leadership Academy in Canoga Park, California, White treats them like his own children: loving them, protecting them, and requiring them to become men and women of moral courage, integrity, and high achievement.
Sometimes it only takes one person to turn the tide. During his twenty-five-year career as a teacher, Paul White has saved hundreds of students from falling through the cracks. Veritable miracles have taken place in his classroom:
?The reading skills of a fourteen-year-old recovering crystal meth addict climbed from a seventh- to a tenth-grade level in six months. She finished high school at age sixteen and went on to complete a nursing program.
A fifteen-year-old girl was flunking out of school--and so violent that the safety of the people around her couldn't be guaranteed. After joining Paul's class, she not only brought her grades up enough to graduate from high school at sixteen, but has gone on to finish several semesters at a local community college.
A seventeen-year-old boy who had been a neo-Nazi asked a Holocaust survivor to forgive him for his disrespectful behavior.
White's Rules is a lesson to parents and educators who can't control their kids or their classrooms. For Americans who truly want to stop the violence, end the apathy, and improve academic performance, White poses a challenge: Try his rules. The ten-rule list that he developed covers everything from character values to schoolwork, from getting off drugs to learning personal finance skills. By enforcing these rules, parents and educators can attack both the causes and the effects of the crisis in our schools. This is the moving story of how the program evolved and what we can all do to save our youth, one kid at a time.

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0

I thought this book covered some very practical ideas. A lot of the stories found in the book were a bit surprising. He truly made a turn around with some of these kids. He also admits that not everything worked.
At times I found myself getting a little caught up with his sense of an ego lingering through the pages. I almost felt as if there was a bit of bragging going on. Although I think he is a man who deserves to boast since he sacrificed a lot of time and money to help others, not mention often... more info

Every school district administrator should read this.:

Mr. White doesn't claim to have a system to cure all of the schools' ills but he certainly has a good start. He also makes the statement that today's kids aren't any worse than we were but just the boundaries aren't as well defined as we had back in the 50's and 60's.
Mr. White does admit to his failures, not every one has coming through his doors went out a better human being but many are able to shop where they want and get ahead instead of stuck in the same dependency cycle.
His rules are... more info

white's Rules..common sense:

paul white has made it simple...just do what is already available to do..the kids will get there if we let them and encourage them. this is a must read for everyone...
i passed this book on to some teachers and adminstrators...they tell me there is a waiting list to read it.
well done

Making a difference:

There's tendency as a veteran teacher of twenty-five years to think I have all the answers about how to run an effective classroom. White's Rules is a reminder that what is basic in life is also basic in the classroom. The classroom must provide more than academic instruction; it must be a place where teachers establish the primary values and morals that their students need to survive in the world outside the classroom. This book shows how teachers can demand bedrock solid values of their students and reap... more info

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