I first met Don Hellison some twenty years ago when he was a professor at Portland State. I admired his philosophy and energy back then and when his initial Teaching Responsibility Through Physical Activity book came out, read it eagerly. I was not disappointed. It contained a practical system, backed up by practical experience, for teaching affective domain skills in physical education. The core of the text was "The Personal/Social Responsibility Model". The five development levels of the Model were (0) Irresponsibility, (1) Self-Control, (2) Involvement, (3) Self-Responsibility and (4) Caring. Over the years many articles have been written by teachers of all grade levels explaining how they have effectively used and modified the model in their classes. The work indeed has become a classic in our profession.

This new edition is a major rewrite of the first. Regardless of how important we believe in our domain of fitness and psychomotor skills, we all are aware that we have an impact on our students' affective skills. Don, in this second edition, makes clear how pronounced of an impact that can be and how badly more and more of today's students require help in developing their personal and social skills. He will convince you that having young people participating in cooperative and competitive physical activities affords us a unique opportunity to serve this need, and he provides many effective procedures for doing so.

The theme stressed throughout the book is that in order for young people to become responsible they must be given responsibility. Not only does Don give examples of how this can be done with your more mature, better behaved classes, but also has ideas for moving in this direction both in the younger elementary grades and with the less well-behaved classes. Finally, Don stresses that responsibility skills learned in class might not be automatically transferred to beyond the gym. As with everything else, practical ideas are presented that can be used to promote this transition.

Some new features:
* KidQuotes, comments from real kids to motivate you to apply the concepts)
* "Take-Aways" that summarize each chapter and help you consider your own situation
* New chapters on the lesson plan structure
* Strategies for specific problems that arise in class
* Guidelines for assessment of responsibility

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