Kathleen Cushman

A sequel to the classic Fires in the Bathroom that illuminates what adolescents most need from teachers in today's upsetting times The context in which adolescents are learning has shifted radically since students first offered blunt advice to high school teachers in the groundbreaking Fires in the Bathroom, a perennial bestseller. Now their world is changing at warp speed, and classrooms too are seething with anxiety. This sequel raises the voices of diverse youth around the nation as they live through the mind-bending quandaries of this era and ask their teachers to notice. In Fires in Our Lives, Kathleen Cushman and her co-authors Kristien Zenkov and Meagan Call-Cummings (both leaders in bringing student voices to teacher education) present new first-person testimony on how today's youth experience the risks and challenges of high school. The students who speak here need their teachers more than ever as they navigate cultural, social, and political borders in their communities. Reinforced by classroom examples and supplemented with helpful takeaways, Fires in Our Lives offers a compelling dialogue about students' emotions, ideas, and developing agency. In a world that sorely needs the thoughtful participation of its rising generation, this new staple belongs on every high school teacher's bookshelf.

Despite growing attention to the importance of grit and other character traits for achievement, developing them in students rarely finds its way into secondary school curricula. Authors Barbara Cervone and Kathleen Cushman investigate the exceptions, telling the stories of five high schools with a national reputation for infusing rigorous academics with social and emotional learning, which results in demonstrable benefits for students.Based on extensive interviews and on-site visits, the book identifies six elements that all of these schools have in common, including advisories and other structural supports for students and teachers; rituals and other means for establishing an intentional, reflective, and respectful community as well as a firm commitment to restorative justice; and a broad and engaging curriculum that includes service learning.Featuring the voices of educators and students alike, Belonging and Becoming not only shows how these schools stand out for their high degree of caring and success, but makes a strong case for why other schools should be inspired to take up the challenge and replicate their efforts.

Despite growing attention to the importance of grit and other character traits for achievement, developing them in students rarely finds its way into secondary school curricula. Authors Barbara Cervone and Kathleen Cushman investigate the exceptions, telling the stories of five high schools with a national reputation for infusing rigorous academics with social and emotional learning, which results in demonstrable benefits for students.Based on extensive interviews and on-site visits, the book identifies six elements that all of these schools have in common, including advisories and other structural supports for students and teachers; rituals and other means for establishing an intentional, reflective, and respectful community as well as a firm commitment to restorative justice; and a broad and engaging curriculum that includes service learning.Featuring the voices of educators and students alike, Belonging and Becoming not only shows how these schools stand out for their high degree of caring and success, but makes a strong case for why other schools should be inspired to take up the challenge and replicate their efforts.

Teens talk to adults about how they develop motivation and mastery Through the voices of students themselves, Fires in the Mind brings a game-changing question to teachers of adolescents: What does it take to get really good at something? Starting with what they already know and do well, teenagers from widely diverse backgrounds join a cutting-edge dialogue with adults about the development of mastery in and out of school. Their insights frame motivation, practice, and academic challenge in a new light that galvanizes more powerful learning for all. To put these students' ideas into practice, the book also includes practical tips for educators. Breaks new ground by bringing youth voices to a timely topic-motivation and masteryIncludes worksheets, tips, and discussion guides that help put the book's ideas into practiceAuthor has 18 previous books on adolescent learning and has written for the New York Times Magazine, Educational Leadership, and American Educator From the acclaimed author of Fires in the Bathroom, this is the next-step book that pushes the conversation to next level, as teenagers tackle the pressing challenges of motivation and mastery.

Much has been written about how to engage students in their learning, but very little of it has issued from students themselves. Compiled by one of the leading scholars in the field of student voice, this sourcebook draws on the perspectives of secondary students in the United States, England, Canada, and Australia as well as on the work of teachers, researchers, and teacher educators who have collaborated with a wide variety of students.Highlighting student voices, it features five chapters focused on student perspectives, articulated in their own words, regarding specific approaches to creating and maintaining a positive classroom environment and designing engaging lessons and on more general issues of respect and responsibility in the classroom. To support educators in developing strategies for accessing and responding to student voices in their own classrooms, the book provides detailed guidelines created by educational researchers for gathering and acting upon student perspectives. To illustrate how these approaches work in practice, the book includes stories of how pre-service and in-service teachers, school leaders, and teacher educators have made student voices and participation central to their classroom and school practices. And finally, addressing both practical and theoretical questions, the book includes a chapter that outlines action steps for high school teachers, school leaders, and teacher educators and a chapter that offers a conceptual framework for thinking about and engaging in this work. Bringing together in a single text student perspectives, descriptions of successful efforts to access them in secondary education contexts, concrete advice for practitioners, and a theoretical framework for further exploration, this sourcebook can be used to guide practice and support re-imagining education in secondary schools of all kinds, and the principles can be adapted for other educational contexts.

Much has been written about how to engage students in their learning, but very little of it has issued from students themselves. Compiled by one of the leading scholars in the field of student voice, this sourcebook draws on the perspectives of secondary students in the United States, England, Canada, and Australia as well as on the work of teachers, researchers, and teacher educators who have collaborated with a wide variety of students.Highlighting student voices, it features five chapters focused on student perspectives, articulated in their own words, regarding specific approaches to creating and maintaining a positive classroom environment and designing engaging lessons and on more general issues of respect and responsibility in the classroom. To support educators in developing strategies for accessing and responding to student voices in their own classrooms, the book provides detailed guidelines created by educational researchers for gathering and acting upon student perspectives. To illustrate how these approaches work in practice, the book includes stories of how pre-service and in-service teachers, school leaders, and teacher educators have made student voices and participation central to their classroom and school practices. And finally, addressing both practical and theoretical questions, the book includes a chapter that outlines action steps for high school teachers, school leaders, and teacher educators and a chapter that offers a conceptual framework for thinking about and engaging in this work. Bringing together in a single text student perspectives, descriptions of successful efforts to access them in secondary education contexts, concrete advice for practitioners, and a theoretical framework for further exploration, this sourcebook can be used to guide practice and support re-imagining education in secondary schools of all kinds, and the principles can be adapted for other educational contexts.

Following on the heels of the bestselling Fires in the Bathroom, which presented the insights of senior school students to teachers and parents, Cushman turns her attention to the crucial and challenging early senior and late primary school ages. Cushman joins forces with adolesecent psychologist Laura Rogers and presents feedback from a diverse range of students offering insight on what it takes to make classrooms more effective and how to forge stronger relationships between younger adolsecents and adults.

An invaluable guide to teaching teenagers, featuring the uncensored advice of the students themselves.

The Real Boys' Workbook is a unique, instructive workbook, full of advice, exercises, and stories to help parents, professionals, and boys themselves understand boys--and how to make life with them better. How to listen to boys, talk and be with them, exercises to teach you new ways to handle situations, and strategies for coping with problems (drug and alcohol abuse, gender identity, depression, bullies) are addressed, as readers are encouraged to respond to questions and situations, to learn how to think about boys with new understanding, and to react more creatively. Through writing down responses in the workbook, using the charts and summaries, and taking part in the provocative question-and-answer sections, you will gain insight into boys and their problems and be better able to be with them in effective and powerful ways.