Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for Teachers from High School Students [Hardcover]

Kathleen Cushman (Author), Lisa Delpit (Author), Students of What Kids Can Do (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1565848020 | ISBN-13: 978-1565848023 | Publication Date: May 2003 | Edition: 1

An invaluable guide to teaching teenagers, featuring the uncensored advice of the students themselves, with an introduction by the best-selling educator Lisa Delpit.

What's a new teacher supposed to do when "she's trying to be nice and they're setting fires in the bathroom?"—Oakland teenager

This innovative approach to teaching teenagers comes from the point of view of students in today's hard-pressed urban high schools, where the teacher shortage has reached crisis proportions. It speaks to both new and established teachers, giving them first-hand information about who their students are and what they need to succeed.

Forty students from three cities contributed perceptive and pragmatic answers to questions of how teachers can transcend the barriers of adolescent identity and culture to reach the diverse pupils in today's urban schools. Their responses are grouped into chapters on increasing engagement and motivation, teaching difficult academic material, reaching English language learners, and creating a classroom cultures where respect and success go hand in hand.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Teenagers dictating to teachers sounds dubious, but educators will want to take note of the message from this volume: students do want to learn. Cushman, an education journalist working in conjunction with the nonprofit organization What Kids Can Do, extensively interviewed high school students in several urban areas about every aspect of school, producing this compendium of their advice here. At its best, it gives teachers solid insights from students like Vance, 18: "You really affect kids when you just do your job day in and day out, do it well." The book covers a range of subjects, including how to get to know students, how to earn their trust, how to judge their behavior and what to do when things go wrong. However, the students' demands can sometimes seem unrealistic, especially for teachers in overcrowded public schools-for extra tutoring sessions, for the use of primary source material instead of just textbooks-and the author does not aid her student co-authors by keeping their comments relatively short and by presenting them out of context. For struggling teachers, Cushman's self-questionnaires are the reason to buy. Although best for new teachers, this chance to hear the authentic voices of students should not be overlooked by anyone involved in teen education. B&w illus.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

A book for everyone who teaches, veteran as well as beginner, to read and to ponder. -- Theodore R. Sizer

Concrete, specific, engaging . . . useful for busy classroom teachers. -- Thomas Payzant, Superintendent, Boston Public Schools

Tells it like it is . . . much wisdom here. All educators should read this book—parents too. -- Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 204 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The; 1 edition (May 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565848020
• ISBN-13: 978-1565848023
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #192,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kathleen Cushman: Writer and speaker, raising youth voices

As a journalist and documentarian, I collaborate with diverse youth around the U.S. and abroad, bringing their voices directly to bear on the complex challenges that affect their lives and learning. As a speaker and presenter, I work with educational institutions to connect the direct input of youth with promising practices in secondary schools and colleges.

I bring forty years of experience and new learning to this work. Most of my work since 2001 is for What Kids Can Do (WKCD.org), the nonprofit I co-founded with Barbara Cervone, but I also regularly speak, consult, and write for organizations around the country.

Starting as a printer's devil in my high school years, over four decades I've worn every hat in publishing: writer, editor, and publisher for newspapers, magazines, and books in many fields. Reporting on national high school change from 1988 to 2001 gave me a solid grasp of educational issues and an active network of people in the forefront of that field. Teaching first-year writing at Harvard trained me to coach young people to think deeply and to free up and discipline their voices. Helping to start a progressive public secondary school in Massachusetts in 1995 gave me hands-on experience in setting the bar high for all students.

In the past decade, for WKCD, I have traveled the U.S. and abroad collecting the voices of youth, then bringing their words into print and mixed-media forms. Grounded in the rough and subtle realities of adolescence, these voices cut close to the bone -- illuminating "best practices" in education, and revealing the fault lines that divide students along lines of class, color, and money. I aim to bring young people's vivid experiences and insights to an even wider audience, by speaking, writing, and collaborating with you who share a commitment to equity, opportunity, and powerful learning for all.

I live and work in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I wish I had read this before my first year of teaching, September 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for Teachers from High School Students (Hardcover)

This book was awesome! If I had read this before my first year of teaching, I would have been a much better teacher. I'm really glad I came across it in a bookstore and bought it on a whim as I entered my second year of teaching. It's a book that I know I will read again after a bad day to connected to my students' point of view. It's also a book that I plan to share with many of my colleagues. It really hepled me see things from a kids' perspective. I think it will change my teaching for the better.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Interesting view on education from students but a lack of criticality, January 6, 2009

By 

Frida Kahlo "r" - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for Teachers from High School Students (Paperback)

This text has a lot to offer in terms of the nuances of how kids act and think, and about how they perceive education. What is particularly troubling about this text is an introduction about how the author worked with a group of children to get a colleague fired. I suppose this is okay because she is a journalist and not a teacher? But is this really a good model of writing/documenting - if not of teaching or of educational research? Surely there is some compromise between neglecting student voices and inappropriately colluding with students to fire inexperienced or overwhelmed colleagues. (Are the fires really in the bathroom?)

This rather large issue aside, the text is quite repetitive without offering elaboration. The suggestion to have students revise their work comes up again and again without much suggestion how. Lots of teachers use revision, and there are myriad ways to approach this. This is perhaps why it's a shame the journalist author left teachers out of the equation.

Some of the excerpts from kids are so brief and unclear that it seems to also ghettoize the dialect and casual statements of what seems like a usually articulate group of children. Cushman throws around the cultural capital of New York City public schools without a lot of basis. Out of 18 children interviewed, only five are from New York - and some of these attend "small" and possibly private schools. What this book perhaps more aptly addresses is a journalist's view of suburban teaching in Rhode Island and California, where most of her interviewees are students.

Overall a somewhat disappointing read - educators: please consider a wealth of texts from actual teachers and those within legitimately urban environments like yourselves.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars one of the best books for new or old teachers, August 30, 2005

By 

R. Hill (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for Teachers from High School Students (Paperback)

I was in the bookstore browsing and found this book. I've been teaching college students for over ten years, but only began teaching community college four years ago, and thus feel a bit at sea sometimes with the "high school mentality." This book contains some things that are obvious to those who have been teaching for a long time, but it's almost certain that at least one or two of the views of the kids will be helpful and will translate directly into classroom practice in a way that few books on teaching do.
The insights this book provides into what highschools are like, especially for kids in large city schools, are invaluable. I was surprised to find myself already following a piece of advice I read in the book in the classroom the next day. Definetely worth reading.