Firing Up Teacher-Student
Communication
(http://www.education-world.com/a_issues/chat/chat088.shtml) |
What
do high school students really want from their teachers? According to the 40
students who expressed their views in Fires in the Bathroom: Advice to Teachers
from High School Students, they want respect, honesty, and an
understanding of them as individuals. Included:
Students' tips for classroom teachers.
Fires
in the Bathroom: Advice for Teachers from High School Students
is full of tips teachers won't hear in any teacher-training program. "It's okay
if kids hate you at first," one student notes. "If you care about your
teaching, you'll get past that." Another student adds that new teachers
frequently worry too much about being nice to students, when in fact, "they're
setting fires in the bathroom."
Reporter
Kathleen Cushman teamed up with 40 teenagers from four urban areas (New York
City, Providence, Rhode Island, and San Francisco) to write a book about what
high school students say they need from their teachers in order to succeed. A
writer for What Kids Can Do,
Inc., Cushman listened to students' best and worst school experiences,
and their hopes and suggestions for getting the best education possible.
What
Kids Can Do is starting to involve high school students in conducting surveys
and other research into their own schooling, and to use the resulting data to
plan with teachers and administrators for specific improvements in their
schools.
Cushman
talked with Education World about the students' views and how educators are
using her book.
Education
World: How can educators use this book?
Kathleen
Cushman: Teachers already are using the book in lots of ways. In Houston, as
part of an effort to improve teaching and learning in their schools, groups of
teachers and students in seven schools have read the book together and held
discussions about it. Several teachers also have assigned the book as a work of
nonfiction to students in English classes, and have used it to prompt students'
reflections on their education. In Boston, new teachers read and discuss it
before their first year in the classroom. In St. Louis, students and teachers
have completed some of the exercises in the book together, and have even
created their own variations on them. Teachers have responded to the book with
great enthusiasm.
EW:
How did you find and select the students to work with? How long did it take to
research and write the book?
Cushman:
Together with What Kids Can
Do, Inc., the organization I wrote the book for, I cast a broad net
among the schools, teachers, and youth development groups we already knew well.
We asked them to identify students with a wide range of prior academic success,
and we concentrated on students from backgrounds that reflected the typical
urban public school. Almost all were students of color, and most came from
backgrounds of poverty. Half were recent immigrants. The book took a year to
research and write.
EW:
What surprised you most about students' views?
Cushman:
I was surprised that students did not point the finger of blame at teachers
when they described negative experiences in schools. They recognized the
importance of teachers setting clear expectations and maintaining an orderly
atmosphere for learning, and they appreciated teachers who did that. At the
same time, they resented situations that set up a paradigm of control, asking
instead for the same respect that adults expect. They saw their education in
terms of a bargain, in which they agreed to certain constraints in exchange for
teachers who would know both their material and their students well.
EW:
What are some of the most important things educators can learn from this book?
Cushman:
The most important lesson of this book is how crucial it is to build
teacher-student partnerships as the foundation for all that happens in a class,
good and bad. Aside from that, students are communicating in this book their
very real hunger to learn, which can so easily either be stoked or shut down by
the smallest gesture on a teacher's part.
EW:
It was interesting that you wrote in the book's afterword that, "Only when
teachers can know their students well enough to respond to them individually
will the suggestions in this book have any chance of taking root." How
realistic is that hope, given all the demands on teachers' time?
Cushman:
Of all the ways teachers could spend their time, knowing students well and
responding to them individually is the one that reaps the greatest benefits.
The positive energy that results when students feel seen, known, and valued
actually gives back energy to the teacher, improves the classroom culture and
tone, and replenishes energy and time for intellectual work together.
EW:
What can teachers and schools do to get students more involved in their own
learning?
Cushman:
Ask them! Create time and space to talk about what matters to both teachers and
students.
EW:
At the heart of the students' recommendations seems to be "Get to know us as
people." What are the biggest obstacles to implementing that key
recommendation?
Cushman:
Large high schools; schools organized in such a way that teachers must be
responsible for more than 80 students; and a policy environment that reduces
students to what can be known about them through a single multiple-choice test.
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