An invaluable guide to teaching teenagers, featuring the uncensored advice of the students themselves, with an introduction by the best-selling educator Lisa Delpit. What's a new teacher supposed to do when "she's trying to be nice and they're setting fires in the bathroom?"Oakland teenager This innovative approach to teaching teenagers comes from the point of view of students in today's hard-pressed urban high schools, where the teacher shortage has reached crisis proportions. It speaks to both new and established teachers, giving them first-hand information about who their students are and what they need to succeed. Forty students from three cities contributed perceptive and pragmatic answers to questions of how teachers can transcend the barriers of adolescent identity and culture to reach the diverse pupils in today's urban schools. Their responses are grouped into chapters on increasing engagement and motivation, teaching difficult academic material, reaching English language learners, and creating a classroom cultures where respect and success go hand in hand.