Educating Esme

Codell, Esme Raji. Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books. 1999. Print

First Sentences:

To: fifth-grade beginniners
From: Melanie, fifth-grader

I know what your thinking your thinking that going to the fifth grade is going to be fun and not hard well I got something to tell you. You got to know every thing. you have to know your devition your time tables know how to do the down down decimal sistem.

Description:

Wouldn't it have been great to have had a spectularly fun, innovative, and intelligent teacher during your elementary school years? Well, meet Esme Raji Cordell, (a.k.a "Madame Esme"), the author of the delightful autobiography and tales of teaching, Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year.

Just imagine entering the classroom of Madame Esme's (as she prefers to be called for its regal air) on the first day of the opening of a brand new school and her first day as a teacher of fifth grade inner city children. What do you see in her room?

• A school-shaped bulletin board declaring, "New School ... You're What Makes it Special" with apples on it that are matched to desks where you are to sit;
• A bulletin board detailing the five steps to "Solving Conflict";
• A King Kong figure on top of Empire State Building with "King Kong Says Reach for the Top!" with floors on the building labeled "Listen," "Think,' "Work Carefully," and "Check Your Work";
• The Spelling Center with games, typewriter, electronic pen, and sponge letters with paint;
• The Art Center with "bins of new, juicy markers, craft books and real art books with pictures of naked people";
• A 3D papier mache poster of five multiethinic kids' heads saying "Welcome to Cool School";
• A huge Time Machine (old refrigerator box) covered in aluminum foil and a red flashing police light on top, with "Danger," "Highly radioactive," and "No peeking, this means YOU!" written on it.

Who wouldn't want to go into that room? At the door, Madame Esme greets every child at the door with a "real chipper 'Good Morning,'" then collects their problems in a "Trouble Basket." Children mime tossing into the basket any worries from home or personal life so they can concentrate on school. It is so successful that students from other classrooms stop by to unload their own problems before trudging to their own classes.

Her opening words to her class?

"I gave them my speech about how mean I was and how I've taught football players and cowboys and dinosaurs and Martians, so a few fifth graders aren't too challenging, but I need the money, so I'd give it a shot."

Educating Esme chronicles Madame Esme's first year of teaching in a new school, from her successful projects and ideas to the continual opposition she faced from her principal for her perceived defiance to established rules (including being referred to as "Madame Esme" rather than "Ms. Codell").

She is a dynamo of ideas developed to reach children, establish their sense of self-worth and mutual respect for peers, and to learn about the wonders of the world of reading, art, and creativity. She is a teacher "carried away with the idea of infinite possibility." 

To excite them about boring subjects, she renames the Math work to "Puzzling," changes science to "Mad Scientist Time," and social studies to "Time Travel and World Exploring." To help her highly illiterate student learn to read, she has them create alphabet posters "for the kindergartners" that show each letter along with pictures and words the students have found using that letter.

She found that they sing along with the national anthem "with more gusto" as it is piped into classrooms each morning ever since she had them shout "Play ball" at the conclusion, something they did at the end of the first all-school assembly to the mortification of her principal. "[My] goal is not necessarily to succeed but to keep trying, to be the kind of person who has ideas and see them through."

She can be stubborn in her determination about what needs to be done. "Compromise is fine for people who aren't as right as me," she declares. When her principal tells her that her curriculum does not match state requirements, she argues that she can could just fabricate reports and pretend that what happens behind her closed classroom door is all according to the rules so she can continue to reach out to kids in her own way. 

Even with her efforts, the children don't blossom overnight into scholars. Many deal with extremely difficult home situations or dangers in their neighborhoods. But Esme is determined to always work for their betterment, and the book records many large and small successes for her children both academically and personally.  

Her book shows both the possibilities and the frustrations of an innovative teacher working within a challenging situation with little support for her ideas. For Madame Esme, everything is about the children and helping them become better, stronger, more curious, and understanding of others. Reading about her efforts is both wondrous and sad that the great teachers have to struggle so much for so little reward and recognition.

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Codell, Esme Raji. How to Get Your Child to Love Reading 

Wonderful resources for books appropriate and exciting for new-born children to high schoolers, with plenty of tips for reading to children, involving them in creative activities, and finding books in their own areas of interest.