I found the thoughts and ideas in this book quite powerful. Kimberly Wise points out that teaching children strategies for making wise choices in response to events and people in their lives results in students feeling good about themselves, learning to respect others, and improving their own learning potential. She advocates modeling respect for each individual and a calm and peaceful manner in the classroom. She believes that schools should teach affective education and that relationships are an important component for learning. I read the book in one evening because I could not put it down. Her strategies and ideas will work for all students, not just those in the inner city. They will also be as effective in the home as they are at school.

"Wise Practice" describes the development and use of affective education in the classroom. The book uses an inner-city classroom but the techniques can be applied equally well to suburban and rural classrooms. The book describes the use of emotional techniques to enhance the atmosphere of the classroom and to improve the overall learning environment for the students and the teacher. These techniques include motion, dialogue, play, and love and were developed from descriptions in scientific literature relating to the part emotions play in learning and in making children open to teaching. The book has many vignettes describing actual classroom use of affective education and how the classroom tone improves when it is used properly.
I really enjoyed the book, but I found descriptions of myself and my reactions too many times in the book. The term "reactive" is too descriptive of my interaction with my students and my own child. When confronted by situations that do not go as planned, often I will react to the situation rather than try to understand how the situation arose and what really is going on between me and my students. Although the book describes events in an elementary school setting, I can see how the tools and techniques described are readily applicable to a high school classroom. I find that, as an adult, I enjoy the techniques of BrainGym® and HeartMath®; I expect that my high school students will as well. In addition, the book has alerted me to ways I better can deal with myself and my students to make my classroom a better place for all of us. I want to be able to make an emotionally safe space for my students and the techniques of affective education allow me to do that.