Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for Teachers from High School Students »

Kathleen Cushman is the author of What We Can't Tell You: Teenagers Talk to Adults in Their Lives and co-author of The Real Boys Workbook and Learning and the Real World. As a writer for What Kids Can Do, Inc., a national nonprofit organization, she works to bring forward the voices of student writers around the nation. She lives in Harvard, Massachusetts.

Working with the nonprofit group What Kids Can Do, Inc., Cushman gathers advice for teachers from 40 high school students in New York City, Providence, and San Francisco. The students collectively suggest that it is the teacher's relationship to students that is one of the more important factors behind student learning and behavior. She organizes and interprets the kids' advice in sections devoted to classroom behavior, group work, motivation and boredom, English as a second language, and other topics. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

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. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.