Chapter 10: Going Beyond the Classroom

In the final chapter of Fires in the Bathroom, the How to Help Students Learn Outside Class sheet seems very useful to me. It is an exercise to help teachers stimulate students' interest in their academic areas (Cushman 181-182).

This tool seems like it will be very useful in the future. Directing students to locations other than the school to improve knowledge of the material is very important. This will help students realize why they are learning what I am teaching, maybe make them want to learn more. It will be very easy to think of places for students to go relating health. They could go anywhere from a health clinic to a summer camp.

Chapter 9: When Things Go Wrong

I appreciated the comments from Lauraliz and Vance in Chapter 9 of Fires in the Bathroom about teachers having confidence. They discussed how if a teacher comes across as scared, then students will pick them apart and take advantage of them. If teachers portray themselves as confident, students will respect them more (Cushman, 168).

Lauraliz and Vance's comments about teachers were definitely true when I was in high school. If a teacher was really nice and quiet, students would push the limits because they knew they would not do anything about it. If we had a teacher that was confident and made it clear that they are in charge, students would respect them and always ask before leaving the room. I think teachers need to be nice to their students and make it clear that they want their students to succeed, but they really need make certain that their students know they will not tolerate disrespect.

Chapter 8: Teaching Teenagers Who Are Still Learning English

Something that I can relate to in this chapter of Fires in the Bathroom is a comment made by Elaine. She expressed how difficult it is for students who do not speak English properly to make friends outside of ELD classes. This is because they are scared to speak to English students improperly. When they do not speak to English students, they fall back on speaking their own language to each other, which does not allow them to practice their English-speaking skills (Cushman, 146).

This reminds me a lot of the international kids that come to the YMCA Camp of Maine (where I work in the summer). Their parents send them expecting for them to work on speaking English. Most of them do not want to approach the English kids, and cling to kids from their own countries, speaking in their first language. As counselors, we do not allow them to speak their own languages when they are around English kids. We tell them that the reason they came to the US is the learn how to speak English better. Once the kids open up and start speaking English more, the American kids are always open to helping them and do not belittle them for speaking slow, stuttering, etc. I think that this is a very positive experience for international kids, and schools should be like this. Students like Elaine should be encouraged to speak to everyone in order to strengthen their English.

Chapter 7: Teaching Difficult Academic Material

One thing that really stuck out to me in Chapter 7 of Cushman's Fires in the Bathroom was the part about group work. Mahogany told of how her teacher put her in a group with three unmotivated students who never did any work. The teacher claimed that he thought Mahogany would help push the other group members to do work. She was frustrated with being in a group because she was doing all of the work, so she might as well work alone (Cushman, 130).

I can really relate to Mahogany's experience with group work. I feel like when a teacher assigns groups, students are immediately passing judgment on the types of workers they have in their group. If the person is an overachiever and they have all underachievers in their group, they realize that they will be doing all of the work. If the person is an underachiever and they have at least one overachiever (or even someone who is conscious about getting work done) in their group, they will be excited to know they will not have to do work in order for it to get completed. Teachers definitely need to be aware of this. I think that when students work in groups they should be graded individually based on their participation and contributions to the group. This way, all of the work will not be on one student's shoulders.

Chapter 6: Motivation and Boredom

In Chapter 6 of Fires in the Bathroom, Hilary's comment about school restricting her really interested me. She felt that schools was keeping her from learning because she did not have time to read books she chose or do artwork (Cushman, 100).

Hilary's comment reminded me of a paper we read in Beth's class about a boy who did poorly in school but knew everything about vehicles, engines, directions, and more. The boy possessed a lot of knowledge, but his schoolwork did not keep his interest and he learned nothing from it. His teacher should have related the material to his passion for effective learning. I think that teachers need to accommodate to students' needs and realize that they all learn differently. What works for one student may not work for the next. Teachers need to be flexible and realize that they need to help their students reach their full potentials.

Chapter 5: Teaching to the Individual, Working with the Group

In Chapter 5 of Fires in the Bathroom, the part that I related to the most is Mika's comment about the way teachers ask their students questions. She said that she likes it when teachers ask her opinion questions rather than questions that have a right or wrong answer. This makes students want to participate more(Cushman, 91).

I feel that I can relate to Mika's comment from my experiences at Mt. Blue High School. The health classes that I have been teaching/observing have many different levels of students. Some of them are very advanced, while some have a difficult time understanding simple concepts. My practicum teacher's lessons always consist of discussions about various topics. When he calls on a student, he always asks them an opinion question, never a question that has a straight-forward answer. This way, students of all levels can participate equally. If he asks a question that is looking for a certain answer and a student gives him a wrong response, he does not make them feel inadequate. He will say something like: 'that is a really good answer, another answer is...' and then tell the class what he was looking for. I noticed that this makes his students feel very comfortable and they all participate without holding back. I definitely want to use this teaching style in my classroom. I need all of my students to participate and give me their opinions, or I will not know about their views on health and themselves.

Chapter 4: Creating a Culture of Success

When I read Chapter 4 of Fires in the Bathroom, the How Do I Grade? sheet really caught my attention. It asks questions about how a teacher grades and how they can improve the success rate of their students (Cushman, 79).

The reason that I liked this sheet is because I have never seen a reflection tool for teachers like this before. It is simple, yet a teacher may not think of their grading styles as deeply without using a tool like this one. I am definitely going to keep this in mind when I start grading.

Chapter 3: Classroom Behavior

One thing that really caught my attention in Chapter 3 of Cushman's Fires in the Bathroom was Maribel's comment about being in a class where her fellow students misbehave. Maribel told of how it does not feel good when a student wants to learn but the other students are not letting the teacher teach. It makes the students who are trying to pay attention zone out and lose interest (Cushman, 36).

I can relate to Maribel. If I am in a class, I want to get something out of it. In high school I was in an elective class that had many disruptive students in it. I got so frustrated, and would always leave the class in a bad mood. It is hard for the students that try their best in their classes to learn when all of their peers are being rude.

Web 2.0 Educator

I read various posts from Vicki Davis' Cool Cat Blog. Her first post, which I found very interesting had a video clip from YouTube of the Blue Man Group. They were making music by beating on hollow pipes with drum sticks. Vicki related this to how teachers make beautiful music without resources. She said that having a lack of resources should be viewed as an opportunity, not a curse. It gives teachers a chance to be creative. After I read a few of Vicki's posts I determined that she is a very inspirational teacher who cares a lot about others. She wrote a blog about her friend who is an amputee and completed an iron man. She posted videos of him and seemed very proud. One of her blogs was asking people to donate $10.00 to a school in Cambodia that has minimal technological resources. She has already raised $16,000. In another blog, Vicki discusses the importance of blogs and technology in classrooms.

Vicki definitely supports technology in all classrooms, and she has an excellent blog. She kept discussing how effective she thinks blogs are in the classroom. I definitely agree. I just started blogging because of this class and I do not know why more of my teachers do not utilize them. It is a great way to view classmates' work and get criticism on your own work. I really enjoyed Vicki's blog and would consider going back to it sometime to read more posts.

Focus the Nation

To learn about global warming I watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. It was very interesting and I learned a lot. Three things that I learned are:

• There is a possibility that a major ice sheet in Antarctica could collapse. This could raise global sea levels by 20 feet, which would cause flooding.
• Since 1880, the hottest ten years ever measured have all occured in the past 14 years.

• The Arctic Ocean is losing ice at a fast pace. This negatively effects polar bears.

Since I am going to be a health teacher, I could probably plan a whole unit on global warming, the environment, and ways to be more "green". I could teach my students ways to save energy such as using energy efficient light bulbs, turning off computers when not in use, and taking shorter showers. I could also give them tips such as car-pooling, avoiding bottled water to reduce the use of plastic that will end up in a landfill, and supporting local farmers, etc. I could teach them why global warming is happening and what exactly is happening to the environment. I like how An Inconvenient Truth sort of has a shock factor and it really made me want to try to make a difference. I would definitely want to share that film with my students. For a project, I would have my students create iMovies or use ComicLife to make an interesting project about global warming. I would then have a presentation that the community would be invited to, and all the students could share their work and discuss why making changes to improve our environment are necessary. I would also have the students send letters to Congress about the importance of taking action on global warming. This would make the students feel like they are making a difference.

My MEL experiences

Hands On: My favorite class in high school was Video Production. In this class we learned how to use the program iMovie, and got assigned many different projects to complete. Some of the projects that my partner and I did were a 30-second commercial, a music video, a story we created about the epic poem Beowulf, and a movie that captured our school's Homecoming week. This class was very hands on, which is why I loved it so much. We worked for a week on our first project (the 30-second commercial). We decided to endorse a dance video. We wrote a script, created a dance routine, chose friends to act in the video, selected music, and edited the video entirely on our own. When our videos were finished, we sat together as a class and watched all of the commercials together. The fact that this class was extremely time consuming and difficult did not take away from how much we got out of this class. Movie making is an incredible hands on experience that one will never understand until they have experienced it.

Student/Teacher Relationships: Interacting positively with students is one of a teacher's most important jobs. If a teacher treats a student with disrespect, that student will not be eager to listen to what the teacher has to say. Math was my favorite subject in high school until my senior year when I took Calculus. My teacher ruined it for me completely. I missed a few classes because of National Honor Society duties. When I approached her for help to make up my work, she was completely unwilling to stay after school and was angry with me that I missed classes. After repeatedly trying to find a time to meet with her, I gave up and tried to learn the work I missed on my own. As the class progressed, the teacher seemed to have an obvious disliking toward me that my friends would joke about. I got so angry that I dropped the class in the middle of the quarter even though I was doing well. From that point on, I have a strong feeling of dislike toward math, because I associate it with that teacher. This shows how a negative student/teacher relationship can totally ruin class for a student. Luckily I was in high school and had the option of dropping the class, but most students are not as fortunate and could be stuck with a teacher that they have a bad relationship with for a whole school year.

Learning Styles: I definitely enjoyed the hands on learning style the most. I liked working individually on big projects the best. In my geometry class, my teacher created many projects for us to do that included angles, midpoints, lines, and other measurements that involved geometry. As part of our final we had to create a mobile that involved a certain theme, a variety of shapes, and each piece had to be balanced perfectly. I chose the Olympics as my theme and shaped my pieces as different equipment used in the Olympics. I wrote facts about the Olympics on each piece. This really shows that my teacher was thinking of different styles of learning and giving students the freedom to incorporate something they enjoyed with geometry. I will never forget all of the fun things we did in that class.

Helping Students Succeed: In eighth grade I was in Algebra 1 class. I found it very difficult and needed help almost every day. Many other students were in the same situation that I was, so our teacher made a study group after school and stayed as long as we had questions and needed help. We all appreciated this very much, and the group helped me a lot. That year was the first time that I started to really love math. This shows how much a teacher can help a student if they put in the effort. I went from not understanding Algebra, to math being my favorite subject.

Interest: All throughout school I disliked science. Junior year of high school I took Chemistry, which I was really dreading. My teacher, Mr. Morrow, made it much more desirable by having us do exciting experiments, and making certain that we all understood the material before he started teaching something new. He was aware that many of us were not interested in learning Chemistry, and his goal during the school year was to change our minds about the subject. I really appreciated teachers like Mr. Morrow. Even though I did not have a great interest in his subject, I looked forward to his class because he tried his hardest to make it fun.

Type I and Type II Technology

Type I and Type II technology are fairly similar, yet differ in many ways. Type I technology is what we think of as old teaching. It is when technology is used in the classroom, but the students are not involved in it. Type II technology is when technology is used in the classroom and it engages the students. In other words, Type I is like sitting back and watching, while Type II is hands on.

Some examples of Type I technology are: a teacher using a PowerPoint presentation as a way to display notes to the class, a teacher showing a movie to a class, and using a projector screen to write notes and show diagrams. Examples of Type II technology are: students using computers to work on WebQuests, students making iMovies, students using blogs to view each other's work and comment about it.





Johnson, D. LaMont and Maddux, Cleborne D. Type II Applications of Technology in Education: Better Way of Teaching and Learning. The Haworth Press, Inc: 2005.

Learning Styles Inventory

My results from the Learning Styles Inventory are fairly different from my results in Dr. Grace's class. While the results on this test show that my styles are social and aural, the results from class revealed that I was a mixture of bodily/kinesthetic and visual/spatial.

I definitely think that I belong in the social category, but I do not agree with aural. I was really surprised that the physical style ended up being a lot lower than my results from Dr. Grace's class. I feel like bodily/kinesthetic is definitely my strength out of all these different styles.

Chapter 2: Respect, Liking, Trust, and Fairness

Many of the high school students’ comments in Kathleen Cushman’s Fires in the Bathroom caused me to feel various emotions. While numerous stories caught my attention, Tiffany’s story of her teacher discriminating against a homosexual student in front of the class jumped out at me the most. She told about how a boy was putting on lip-gloss in class and the teacher made a comment about it. This resulted in the boy’s classmates laughing at him (Cushman, 30).

Tiffany’s story made me feel very angry. Teachers should not be biased toward any student. If they have an opinion on a student they need to keep it private and focus on treating all students the same. Teachers should not discriminate or make fun of students at all, let alone in front of an entire class.

Chapter 1: Knowing Students Well

After just reading the first chapter in Fires in the Bathroom, I can already tell that I am going to learn a lot. The thing that stuck out to me the most was when Bosung talked about how students want teachers to teach them, and guidance counselors to guide them (Cushman, 5).

I agree with Bosung. Even though teachers may feel like they want to change all of their students' lives for the better, they are there to teach. If a student wants advice from their teacher, they will ask. Otherwise, it is their guidance counselor's job to counsel them. I think it is very important for teachers to make sure they do not cross any boundaries. If they do, they may lose respect from some of their students.