Fires in the Bathroom: Chapter 1 Quick Response

Chapter 1:
On the first page of chapter one there was a quote by a young student named Tiffany. The quote deals directly with the issue of getting to know your students well. Tiffany talks about how she does not approve of teachers who try and force connections of try too hard to relate to their students. What really jumped out was when she says that she finds this approach condescending. In her own words, "When they say, I understand what you're going through, we know they don't." (page 1.) This particular line made me think back to when I was in high school and felt similarly to young Tiffany.
While I agree that educators who try and force connections are going to turn these kids away and make getting to know them harder, I did appreciate the strategies the authors lay out for finding ways to understand your students. High school students feel as if they are more or less adults and want to be treated as such. This quote from Tiffany demonstrates this and gives us as prospective teachers a good idea as to the reality of the mindset of high school students. However I must reiterate that the various tactics for getting to know our students better seem to be highly effective and have brought me a great deal of insight as to how we can break this idea that teachers can't relate.