Book Review

First Order Principles for College Teachers by Robert Boice

Book Review by Ireta Ekstrom

Robert Boice has written a most unusual time management book. Instead of focusing on office-organizing / folder-creation-filing principles, he has actually focused on the larger issues. What does it take to be an excellent professor and scholar?

Boice's "top ten rules" (First Order Principles or FOPs) promise to make your life easier, help student comprehension and help you produce more with less effort. It sounds pretty good, doesn't it? I was a little skeptical when reading the introduction, but found that I was already doing some of these things and they work – you have probably found and used some of them, too.

His first rule concentrates on classroom culture. By being proactive in the classroom consistently from the first day, you can "Moderate Classroom Incivilities with Prosocial Immediacies."

The next two rules sound contradictory but actually are an interesting mixture. They are "Wait" and "Begin Before Feeling Ready." This waiting is not passive, it is musing about the topic or class or priming for the real work. However, if you begin before you have all of the material you need, you may surprise yourself at how much you have already prepared. Then your groundwork is laid and you can fill in the blanks.

The next two chapters also work together. Boice recommends that we ‘Work and Teach In Brief, Regular Sessions" and then "Stop." I have heard this first adage about writing more than once – the most successful faculty writers do it often – every day, if possible. The second side to this is to have a time frame and then stop when the time is up. Both of these give you a good starting place for next time and you will avoid those marathon writing sessions and those paralyzing feelings of guilt that you haven't been writing.

The next two chapters involve the mind. They are, "Moderate Over-Attachment to Content and Overreaction to Criticism" and "Moderate Negative Thinking and Strong Emotions." Separate emotionally from the content (no, you don't have to teach everything you know in one hour), be proactive by inviting others to help you improve your teaching (and then listening to them) and then avoid those feelings of negative thinking (we have all stared at a blank screen). The result is a much more calm and peaceful working life (this spills over into your private life, too).

The last three chapters are interesting, "Let Others Do Some of The Work," "Welcome Learning and Change" and "Build Resilience by Limiting Wasted Efforts" are also double duty rules. One suggestion of writing or teaching buddy sounds really intriguing to me. Welcome learning and change sounds like a no-brainer, however being joyful in learning can be a struggle if you are feeling overworked and underappreciated by students and are feeling pressure to publish. Limiting wasted efforts definitely is the capstone of the book.

One of the more interesting aspects of the book is that this is all research-based. This is not a compilation of self-help books or business time management axioms. Boice has looked at successful faculty, dissected what makes them successful and distilled those factors into his ten rules. Chapter Eleven contains his research and how he has used this information to improve both teaching and writing for faculty.

The book has much more than I have portrayed here. The level of detail in such a small book is impressive and it is an easy read. You will find that you read a chapter, think about it and then either agree or disagree with it. However, it you apply one or more of these "rules, even one at a time, you may find, as have others, that you are enjoying your teaching and writing more than ever.

Title: First Order Principles for College Teachers
Author: Robert Boice
Publisher: Anker Publishing
Pages: Softcover 166 pages
ISBN: 1-882982-12-6
List Price: $ 54.90