Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire by Rafe Esquith
(#11 in the
50bookchallenge)
Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Method and Madness Inside Room 56 is 5th grade teacher Rafe Esquith's explanation for how he is able to successfully teach in a low socioeconomic area in Los Angeles. In room 56, the students are engaged in lessons, learn life skills like keeping track of their money, but they also score high on the all important mandated testing and even put on a complete production of a Shakespeare play every spring.
Esquith is a very dedicated teacher, some may say to the exclusion of his own life. He opens his classroom at 6:30am and some children don't leave until after 6pm. Although it's a year-round school, he spends the breaks with his current students or with past students, doing things like feeding the homeless on Christmas Eve. He takes his children on trips to Washington, DC and takes older children to visit colleges.
Esquith makes no bones about the things he doesn't approve of in the educational system today. Things like the basal reading programs that are so popular in California schools are an anathema to him. You'll never teach kids to love learning with such dreck. Unlike my education professors who say to stick with the pacing charts while the administration is in the room and do your own thing when they leave, Esquith advises new teachers not to fight the Powers that Be. He simply suggests following the basal program and then find time to assist children with reading outside of the requirements. Starting a reading club during lunchtime or after school a day or two each week will allow children to explore reading on their own terms and limit the chance of the teacher losing his or her job.
He also makes suggestions about how to afford to do science lessons into a time and cash strapped day. Many elementary schools cut out science and social studies to do more drilling for the language and reading tests. Esquith says you can fit everything in, but it takes a while to figure it all out, and you may have to call on parents for some assistance. He looked at all of the useless Christmas presents he received from parents over the years, and started telling them that if they insist on a gift, please make it something for the classroom.
In reading this book, it struck me that the things he talks about cost a lot of money, and he's in a socioeconomic area where the median income is just over $20,000. I looked at the website for the Hobart Shakespeareans, which is the name his company of students use when performing Shakespeare. He's set up as a charitable organization. Additionally, his children have come to the notice of people like Ian McKellan and Michael York--people with the means and connections to help an inner city school program. In the book, Esquith points all of this out. He mentions that it takes some work and some preparation and sometimes school administrations are prickly about such things. I'd guess his book revenue may also go toward his classroom.
My only criticism is that he uses other teacher's failures to contrast why his methods work. He has pointed out that he's had some of his own failures along the way, but I'm not crazy about the approach of advertising a colleague's shortcomings in such a public arena as a book. It seems a bit egotistical to me.
In all, it's a wonderful book. I checked it out from the library, but there are such great ideas I may buy a copy for my own use in the future. Esquith is 100% dedicated to making his students be the best they can be. He's figured out that to do that, he must spend more time and money than the educational system allows and he figured out how to get those resources. At the very least, he's giving children who go home to empty homes in a dangerous neighborhood a safe refuge. At the most, he's training the next generation of art lovers, hard workers and good citizens.