GEE, YOU'RE WONDERFUL, PROFESSOR

Stapleton discusses applying Transactional Analysis principles and techniques in the classroom throughout his 40-year career.

The author, a retired professor who holds advanced degrees in organizational behavior and business administration, is also a Certified Transactional Analyst. This book, most of which is derived from Stapleton’s previously published work, describes how he used TA concepts to enhance students’ learning by minimizing covert psychological games. The first four chapters explain basic TA concepts such as the Parent, Adult, and Child ego states, strokes, transactions, psychological games and rackets, life scripts, and OKness, and outline how they show up in a classroom. (The name of one of these games provides the book’s title.) The chapters that follow detail the author’s concept of a “learning contract,” various possible classroom setups, common classroom games, and his invention, the “Classroom De-Gamer,” as well as his teaching methods. An additional section (“Aspirations, Applications, Ideas”) supplies information about the author, including his family history, his athletic, academic, and business achievements, his teaching, consulting, and administrative experience, and his previous articles and publications. Stapleton also presents his research on students’ evaluations of professors, evidence for the effectiveness of his case study-based teaching methods, and chapters on his views regarding politics and the future of “Spaceship Earth.” The text also contains questions for self-evaluation and numerous diagrams, tables, and charts, along with a 10-page bibliography. The author’s tone is direct and matter-of-fact, but peppered with TA jargon such as “cathect,” “Earthian,” and “NIGYSOB.” (A glossary would have been a useful addition.) Sometimes, a single sentence constitutes an entire five- or six-line paragraph. Stapleton’s ideas are intriguing, and he offers biting commentary on society; however, most of the autobiographical and family history material will be of little interest to the general reader. Other inclusions, such as references to the 2016 and 2024 U.S. presidential elections, JFK assassination conspiracy theories, and observations about popular culture, are outdated and unnecessary.

Provocative insights about teaching and business mixed with irrelevant digressions.