Fires in the Bathroom chapter 10

To be an effective teacher you must go beyond the classroom. You need to make connections with the world outside of the class. Introducing students to internships and summer enrichment programs are great ways to get your students involved with something that they are interested in. The most important part of this chapter, which I will want to do in my classroom, is to support the students to learn on their own. Students will receive great satisfaction from learning and discovering things on their own. They will also get more of an understanding of the material if they learn it themselves rather than the teacher telling them about it.

Fires in the Bathroom chapter 9

When things seem to be going wrong for students the best thing to do with them is to communicate with them. The sooner you communicate with a student who is going through problems then the sooner you can find help for them. Things also can go wrong for teachers as well. This chapter talks about finding the right balance of maintaining classroom management and at the same time letting the student know that I am there for them. There are ways to keep your students involved and connected to the class. When a teacher comes prepared to class and confident then it will rub off on the students. When you know the material and care about the students will care as well. An important thing to understand is that you cannot judge how well you are doing teaching by how much the students like you. You are there to teach the students, not to become most popular.

Fires in the Bathroom chapter 8

I was shocked when I read that 1 in 6 students in America are going to schools where English isn’t their first language. I come from a high school where there wasn’t much diversity at all, and the only people that didn’t speak English as their first language were the exchange students. In this book the students are treated differently because English is their second language, but they are just looking to fit in and learn life everyone else. The most important thing to do is to check for understanding. If the students do not understand something and you move on then they are going to be lost. But if you check for understanding and repeat yourself things are more likely to move smoothly. Another thing this chapter mentions is to be patient. Patients will keep you from giving up on the students, which is the worst possible thing you can do. If you don’t have faith in your students, then they will not have faith in themselves.

Fires in the Bathroom chapter 7

When teaching difficult material you need to do more than just talk about it yourself. You need the students to talk about it, give them feedback and let them reflect on it so you know they understand it. Since I am going to be a history teacher I focused mostly on the section with advice for teaching history. What I found most important was to help the student visualize history and to focus on the most important question of history rather than just all of the names and dates. Having the students visualize history with guest speakers and real life artifacts will make them understand things better and connect with them rather than just reading about it in a textbook. The idea that I liked the most and that I know I will use is to seek out your student’s opinions and make them defend them. I know I will you use this because I love the idea of a class debate.

Fires in the Bathroom chapter 6

There are so many ways that you can motivate your students, but at the same time there are even more ways to put them in a state of boredom. To motivate your students you must show them that you are interested in what you are teaching. Most students have many reasons in which they go to school, and most students like being in school as long as they doing stuff that they find is useful. One of the main reasons for being in school, which I found most important, was to find a career path and receive a well paying job. To motivate students, you need a passionate teacher, talk about issues kids care about, and connect it to the real world. This chapter also mentions getting the students in the habit of free writing. One thing that I want to do is have my students keep a journal whether it is under a made up character that I ask them to take on, or just as themselves talking about whatever they would like. One part that I do not agree with, is that right before vacation is a bad time to give a test. Well to me, one day has to be the last day, so I am not going to waste a week because a vacation is coming up.

Fires in the Bathroom chapter 5

This chapter talks about teaching to the individual and working with the group. With the individual, the most important part is that students will develop strategies to fend off unwanted attention. If students do not want to answer a question, they will do whatever it takes to not answer. Students will do anything from going to the bathroom to writing in their notebooks with their heads down just praying that they will not get called upon. The most important part about working with groups is that you have to assess individual performance and final product separately and assess them by using a clear rubric. This way one person doesn’t carry the whole load and it makes everyone responsible for the work. Students who don’t do any of the work on and “A” project should not get that credit. Everyone should be responsible for something. The rubric will help them know exactly what the teacher is looking for.

Fires in the Bathroom chapter 4

When creating a culture for success in your classroom, you need to assign work that really matters, as well as provide a healthy support system for your class. The most important piece in a successful classroom is trust. If your students trust you and you trust your students then everything will run smoothly for the most part. If your students do not trust you they will think that the material that you are teaching isn’t as important as I really is. There are going to be times where your students are going to have issues at home, so there will be times when a student doesn’t get their work done on time. Students think that it is unfair to not allow them make up what they didn’t do. I believe that they need a sincere reason for them to be able to make up the homework that they didn’t do to receive full credit. If a student just doesn’t do their work, I will not allow them to receive full credit, because then it is unfair to the students who did do their work on time. Also if you are a student who doesn’t do the work on time, and you know you will receive full credit when you get it done, you will just do it on your own time when you feel like it.
A large piece of this chapter is showing belief in students. Examples that were given were remind us of that you expect our best, encourage efforts even if they are having trouble, and give helpful feedback and expect them to revise. The most important on to me is providing helpful feedback and expect them to revise. Revising and reflecting are great ways for students to see what they missed on a certain assignment, and what they can do to improve it. Allowing them to rework their assignments provides a deeper understanding so that they show what they know, rather than just taking a C and never looking at the assignment again. School is in place to teach kids and to see what they understand, not to see if they can make it through just going through the motions.
One thing I liked about this chapter is avoiding the impression that right answers matter more than others. People have different opinions on everything. In a history class, if you asked the question “What caused the Civil War” you are going to get many answers. You can’t call one of them right. You can let them know that their answer is good by how well they explained it, yes and no should not be involved.