Customer Reviews

Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56

5 star:		(48)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

During our teaching careers, most of us have experienced a few "Ah-ha" moments. For Rafe Esquith, his wake-up call was literally when his hair caught on fire during a science experiment. Why was he the last one in the class to realize his head was ablaze - because he had inadvertently reached classroom nirvana.

I think of it as being in the zone, Esquith labels it "ignoring the crap," either way, this gifted teacher had a transcendental moment that altered his educational philosophy forever and his influence is rapidly spreading into classrooms across the globe. Part quixotic and possibly part "mad," he has transformed his 5th grade class, of mainly ESL students, into Shakespeare-quoting individuals who have learned how to take charge of their own learning.

Esquith's book challenges such issues as the obsession with high-stakes testing, unresponsive administrators, ineffective professional development opportunities, and the "demons" that take away our energy and spirit. At the heart of his "cookbook" is getting students to take responsibility for their actions and to value failure as an integral part of the learning process.

Check out this book because it explores the realities of teaching difficult students, as opposed to your typical educational log of impractical theories. Pick up this book if you agree with his classroom motto of, "Be nice, work hard. There are no shortcuts." Finally, purchase this book if the biggest fear for your students is that they become ordinary.

Lastly, what really motivated me to buy this book was that Esquith hasn't been lured out of the classroom. Instead, he continues to embrace his mission of finding the different keys it takes to ignite each of his students.

Michael James D'Amato, author of "The Classroom"

I'm a teacher at a public continuation high school in California. I heard about this book on my afternoon commute home listening to NPR. I'm always looking for material to inspire me to become a better teacher. Liking what I heard on the radio, I ordered the book. I was not dissapointed. I resonate with Rafe's passion for teaching and I found many useful ideas in this book even though the students I teach are at the end of their public school journey and his are in the fifth grade. I would recomment this book to any teacher or parent who wants to light their little ones' hearts on fire with a love of learning. His enthusiasm is contagious and is a wonderful "shot in the arm" to any teacher who is struggling in the trenches. I found Mr. Esquith's writing to be upbeat, informative, and when there was blame, it was evenly spread amongst the government, administrators, teachers, and parents-- all whom have a say in how our kids are educated. California is inundated with English learners, yet this book touts a "no holds barred" strategy for having all our kids striving for excellence: no excuses! And he's right in claiming to be "an actual teacher." Many pundits hit the road with their book, abandoning the field to hawk their book and theories, not so with this teacher apparently. You can still find him in room 56. Thanks. Mahalo. I mean it. Two thumbs up. Rock on! Garth.

Rafe Esquith's latest book is aimed at teachers and parents, but the parent part is mostly lip service -- this is mainly a book for teachers. If you're interested in this "teacher of the year's" methods, this book may be worth a look. It is less so if you teach a particular subject, as the book is better suited to elementary teachers who are generalists and teach English, math, social studies, science, art, music, and gym (to name a few) because he devotes an entire chapter to each. High school and middle school teachers will find less of interest here.

OK, so what is it you're looking for from a book like this? If you're more in it for Rafe's STORY and for what goes on his classroom, have a ball. If you're more in it for selfish reasons -- that is, methods you might emulate yourself in the classroom, proceed with care. There's no denying the book contains some useful advice and methods, but it also devotes much attention to matters beyond the realm and finances of most teachers -- full-play productions of Shakespeare, field trips that involve airplane flights (not buses) cross country, film festivals and book clubs held after school or at 6:30 in the morning. Clearly this is a devoted man and, by comparison, some teachers may feel depressed by all he pulls off (while still maintaining a life of his own).

Highlights for me were the Six Levels (in which Rafe explains wrong reasons and right reasons that kids obey their teachers), the well-thought out attack on standardized testing (the bane of any school), and the overall iconoclastic tone. Also, a few of his ideas were illuminating. True, there were not a lot of practical ideas for the classroom, but there were some and some are bound to be of use for teacher/readers.

If I taught elementary grades, I'd invest in this book and add it to my professional library (go ahead, set the bar high for yourself). If I taught junior or high school (or were simply a parent interested in education), I'd check it out at the library and pick the chapters that best suited my interests.

In any case, the bottom line is this: we should all be grateful for teachers like Rafe Esquith.

Esquith has wonderful ideas and this is an excellent book insofar as it shows what can be done with creativity, patience, and dedication. Still, the reader should understand one thing up front--only a minority of teachers, even good teachers, have the same mindset and dedication that Esquith has.

As the manager of a juvenile hall in California, I loved Esquith's classroom philosophy--there are no shortcuts--and as he points out, to be effective you first have to establish what the rules of conduct are in your class. He teaches kids to respect themselves and each other. He is patient, tenacious, and appears open to better ideas. These are great things to model for kids.

A quick look at some downsides of Esquith's book: it is not all that well-written or organized. Worse, he and his book would come off better if he just told us what he does, how he does it, and how he sells his kids and their parents on his program. Instead, in what almost appears to be a (needless) effort to make himself look good, he dishes out criticisms of teachers, school administrators, and other persons and entities who he regards as less enlightened than himself--sometimes to a point where he seems self-righteous and condescending. School administrators and bad teachers are easy and even deserving targets but reading horror story after horror story is tedious and, because it seems somewhat mean-spirited at times, Esquith as a common scold tends to undercut his image. It's almost as if his editor needed to tell him, "Rafe, you're a great teacher, most everyone recognizes it, and you don't need to badmouth others to burnish your own reputation--just tell us how you do what you do with your kids."

I'd suggest that teachers cherry-pick this book for ideas that they feel comfortable with, that work for them, and that help the kids in their classes. Nesquith makes things happen, he's proven himself over the past 25 years, and there also is plenty in this book to make it worthwhile reading for non-teachers who work with kids.

TEN STARS!!
The failing of our education system is one of my biggest worries as a parent of two in the public school system. I have seen first hand the disinterest of teachers as well as students. Everyone is forced into a box and made to perform like circus animals. They are being trained, not educated. When most teachers have given in and given up in this climate of over-reaching and under-funded "No Child Left Behind," Rafe Esquith has gone beyond. He despises it but finds a way to work with-in it and gives his kids a fighting chance. He's part teacher, part parent, and part saint. Every child in the world deserves a teacher as dedicated and versatile as Rafe Esquith.
Too often, school officials feel test prep is the only way to get student scores up and in turn, get the money the schools need. Well, in "Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56" Esquith shows how "teaching" is actually the answer. I feel hopeful for all our kids when I read a book such as this. There is so much possibility as long as there are teachers willing to go the extra mile and demand more out of our kids than how to read prompts and Christmas tree their answers and then go home. Education is not about tests or scores but as Esquith has proved with his 5th graders, it's about lighting a fire beneath them and giving them a love of and a desire for learning. Rafe Esquith's "Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56" should be mandatory reading for every person who takes on the job of educating our children. No less should be tolerated.

Like most people who read this book, I am a teacher, and I happen to work in the same school district as Mr. Esquith, the infamous Los Angeles Unified School District. Pretty much everything Mr. Esquith says about the district's dysfunction is, in my opinion, true. That aside, however, Mr. Esquith has written a book about how to be the sort of teacher that most sane people don't want to be.

Mr. Esquith, by his own admission, spends twelve hours a day, six days a week, forty-eight weeks a year, with his students. The other four weeks he takes them on the road to places like Mount Rushmore, Washington, D.C., Yellowstone National Park, the Ashland Shakespeare Festival, and a number of other places. By my standards, Mr. Esquith "has a screw loose." He spends infinitely more waking time with his students than he does with his own family, and his students spend infinitely more of their waking time with him than they do with their parents. I have a problem with that - it seems completely inappropriate on any number of levels, and I wonder if in the long run it is really good for the students.

I enjoy teaching (seventh-grade social studies), and do the best I can. However, when my work-day is done I go home to this thing called my life. If I kept Mr. Esquith's hours, my wife would, she told me, divorce me. My friends would never see me. I would never make new friends except in the context of my teaching. In other words, my life would be thrown completely out of balance, as is Mr. Esquith's.

While new teachers will perhaps be inspired by Mr. Esquith's heroics, they should ask themselves if they plan on following Mr. Esquith's path. Veteran teachers like myself will probably not benefit much from this book. We'll be too busy wondering why on earth Mr. Esquith would want to spend so much of his time with other people's ten-year-olds. This is not sour grapes. What I do as a teacher would not work for Mr. Esquith. What Mr. Esquith does as a teacher would not work for the vast majority of those in the teaching profession.

Perhaps, as The New York Times says, Rafe Esquith is a genius and a saint. All I know is that I prefer my life to the one he represents as his.

As a public school teacher, I often lament about all the frustrating and pointless changes that I have had to endure over the course of my 23 years of teaching. The madness of chasing after accountability has slowly been sapping the energy out of myself and I am sure out countless others in the teaching profession. Just when I was thinking all hope was lost I stumbled upon this incredible book by Rafe Esquith. In the tradition of Chicken Soup for The Teacher's Soul, this book truly does remind us about what motivated us to become teachers in the first place: Our Students.

The true beauty of this book is that it is written by someone who is actually in the trenches. Mr. Esquith has been teaching in the same school for 22 years in a less than desirable location in Los Angeles. This clearly adds to the credibility of his message and the inspirational affect the book has on the reader. In short Rafe Esquith "gets it".

He shares in the book his own frustration with a "test happy" system that has gone mad, and how it drives him crazy. Yet despite this reality, he has still one sanctuary left that he has control over and that is Room 56 at Hobart Elementary School.

The book is a beautiful blend of practical suggestions and inspirational proof of what takes place in room 56. As a teacher at the high school level I was skeptical about how I could incorporate any strategy that he used in a 5th grade classroom with juniors and seniors. What I learned however, is the message he tries to convey to his students, "be nice and work hard" though simple, has relevance for any age level.

This book is a must for all teachers. Whether you are a wet behind the ears newbie or a slightly graying grissly veteran like myself, this book will inspire you. The book is also great for anyone who needs to believe that there are still inspirational people in the world. I know this is going to be a book that I keep very handy as a reminder to me about why I do what I do.

Thank God for incredible human beings like Rafe Esquith. I know he did not write this book for recognition or praise because he is clearly a level VI thinker, but I am thankful he did. This book can and should inspire generations of current and future teachers for years to come.

Mike Elko-Langhorne, PA - Go Falcons

I enjoyed reading the book, it was certainly well-written. It's amazing what one teacher has managed to accomplish with a group of kids who otherwise would have been relegated to the future "have-nots" of America. I would love to have such a great bunch of kids in my classroom - and I do have some really sweet, caring students.

But then it got depressing. I started the year with 171 students. The idea of giving that much attention to each and every student is quite daunting. I suppose it must be easier in elementary school...but then, my husband teaches in an elementary school district and he has 40 kids in his classroom. Unfortunately, some of them have bigger problems than he can deal with in the classroom - students who are on probation for serious issues of violence, students who are already parents at age 12, etc.

What was really depressing was looking at how much time he spends to get these results. 12 hours a day? 6 days a week? If I spent that much time on raising other peoples' kids, who would raise MY kids? I want to be a great teacher, and I do my best - but I also have a husband and three kids of my own who need some attention from time to time. I'm not going to give up on being a part of their lives so I can turn out excellent students - I'd like the parents of my students to help me along the way. Sadly, many of them don't. It's the teacher's problem if they aren't behaving, and it's the teacher's responsibility to fix the problem - but you can't actually do anything to fix the problem, because the parents will sue.

I do recommend this book as an interesting read. But it's certainly not as inspirational by the time you finish it as it was in the beginning.

This book by National Medal of the Arts winner Rafe Esquith will probably be a bitter pill for many school teachers to swallow. Frankly, when I finished the book, I was wondering if he does anything else in his life except being involved in creative activities with his students or preparing for them. Does the guy ever stop to take a breather? Does he ever spend any leisure time with adult friends? Does he take a bathroom break now and then? His account of his teaching practices often appears to be the educational enterprise on steroids! But I will say I was impressed with his dedication and his abilities and might suggest that with more teachers like him, we might not have the "problems" we do in our current public school system.

I spent seventeen years in the public school system as a teacher and administrator. So I know something about how the system works. I am also aware that many of my views regarding the public schools were then and still are controversial and today most likely "politically incorrect." While I find nothing wrong with Esquith's general teaching methods, curricular ideas, or classroom management techniques, there is one thing -- and only this one thing -- of which I would be critical. Never would I have permitted a student to call me by my first name or, for that matter, allowed the teachers or other school workers I supervised to engage in such a practice. Call me old-fashioned or just not "with it," but I think that sort of familiarity is just not conducive to good classroom management.

However, when Esquith gets into the issue of testing, there I am with him completely if I understand his opinions. Mass standardized testing for the purpose of comparing schools or measuring one school district against others or whatever, is, in my considered opinion, very destructive and mostly deceptive. Testing or measuring or what is often generally called "educational evaluation" is important to be sure. The problem involves the purpose or purposes for which such evaluation is done. In a school where I was the administrator for seven years, we tested the kids twice a year -- at the beginning of the year and in the final week of the school year -- using a standardized test called the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. At the time I thought this was the best instrument to test those basic skills every child ought to learn in order to actually learn, either in school or on his or her own.

We did not, however, use the results of the testing to determine how we compared with other schools or districts, either locally or nationwide. The results were never openly published. The results were used for only two purposes: (1) individual pupil diagnoses to determine what that individual was already proficient at and what weaknesses needed to be addressed during the school year; and (2) a diagnosis of our current curriculum and teaching methodologies to see where and what we as educators needed to improve. The entire professional staff was involved in evaluating the progress of our school and suggesting improvements. Even though our school was located in an isolated rural area and over 90% of our school's pupils were officially designated as "culturally and economically disadvantaged," there was not a single child reading or doing arithmetic below grade-level at the end of seven years when I left for another position in the system.

There is much that teachers might learn from Esquith's book. Certainly the success of his Hobart Shakespeareans cannot be ignored or dismissed. They are, after all, world famous. Esquith deserves the credit he is due for that. Virtually all of his teaching techniques are right on the money. As well as his general management style and the way in which he relates with his students. His emphasis on art and music education needs to be pondered by school boards everywhere. (I have never understood why art and music are the first things usually cut out by school boards when money is tight. These are the most humane of studies and yet athletics is considered more important. Oh, well...)

I recommend this book to all readers, but especially to teachers and school administrators. It will open your eyes while you watch a "master teacher" at work in that most critical of enterprises, the preparation of the next generation of human beings for a life well lived.

This book is really a love song to teaching itself. While I am in full agreement with his sentiments, the book has little practical use for a teacher who has been teaching twenty-three years. I was very envious of the freedom the author has to choose his own materials and methods. Teaching for me used to be like that -- they said, in essence, "This is what we want the kids to know. Teach it," and they left me alone. If I wanted to teach To Kill A Mockingbird or have a Renaissance festival when I taught Shakespeare, if I wanted to have a student play when I taught drama -- I could. I know all school systems are not like the one where I currently teach. In theory, the lessons in my curriculum are an option, and as long as I teach the kids what they need to know, all is well. This is true in theory. The message I get from administration is that they want every teacher of say, eighth grade English, to be teaching exactly the same lesson at the same time. I have no choice about materials either. I love the kids, and kids are still the same after twenty-three years, but I chafe at the restrictions on my creativity, experience, and expertise. I need a book to help me do a better job under these constraints.