On American Schools
ON AMERICAN SCHOOLS
Our schools and, sad to say, some families do a very bad job with children in public places. "Kids just being kids" are often noisy and rude, spoiling a movie or museum for other people. We shouldn't accept this. We need to teach our children the proper behavior in all kinds of situations. If they're rude, let's teach them how to be polite. Just taking the kids on trips isn't enough. We as parents and teachers must do a better job if we want our children to be better human beings.
I once heard about another school that sent its fifth-graders to Washington, D.C. For their trip to the nation's capital, they spent a year getting ready and raised thousands of dollars. Yet the entire trip was only four days long, with the first and fourth days spent going and returning, leaving only two days to spend in the capital. When I spoke to one of the students to see how the trip went, she complained to me that she'd had a lousy time.
(Anchor, May 2004).
"All we did was go to the mall," the little girl told me.
"Well, that's terrific," I told her, trying to put the best face on things. "The mall is exciting. There are the Smithsonian museums and the Washington Monument and the --"
"No, Rafe," she said, "we went to the mall. My teachers shopped for souvenirs and we hung out at the candy store."
We can and must do better than this.
Recently, another elementary school group went to Washington. There was a story in a local school paper about the trip. Sixty children went, accompanied by twenty-two adults! Of course the adults should be commended for their commitment to the trip, but if you need twenty-two adults to supervise sixty children, the children shouldn't be going in the first place.
Nearly every year the Los Angeles Dodgers are kind enough to provide baseball tickets to several games for students and the Jungle (Ed. Note: Rafe's nickname for the Hobart School is the "Jungle"). It's generous of them to do this, but the school does a dreadful job of running the trip. Many of the kids know nothing about baseball; most don't even know who's playing. They run up and down the aisles, buying food every five minutes and screaming their heads off. The group leaves by the end of the fifth or sixth inning, and the adult leaders congratulate themselves on having taken the kids out for an evening.
I'm sorry to be so hard, but this is a waste of what could be many valuable lessons for the children. They could learn about the great game of baseball and still scream their heads off. They could eat all the food they wanted and learn to understand the sacrifice bunt at the same time. And certainly they need to learn to finish what they start. Do we stop reading our book halfway through? Do we leave a play or movie in the middle? Leaving the game early is really teaching kids that it's okay not to finish things.
Allow me to share with you the things that I love to do most of all: taking groups of children on the road. Hotel personnel stop us at the door and beg us to return. Restaurants throw out the bill or bring the students free desserts. Other diners in restaurants watch the group, come up to the cash registers, and pay our bills. Why does this happen?
It doesn't happen because of any brilliant teaching on my part. In fact, it happens because I've made many mistakes and stuck around long enough to learn from them. In my early attempts to travel with students, I wanted to take them places, but didn't understand that I was missing opportunities for them to learn about things that had nothing to do with the places we visited. Instead, I mistakenly believed that having kids walk up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial was going to be the highlight of a trip to Washington. My objectives were misguided.
I've since learned the best reason to take children on the road: children learn and understand how to behave by being exposed to new situations and watching others. Some children act in an inappropriate manner because such behavior is the only type they've ever seen. Children can learn how to behave appropriately at the opera if they see educated people model the manners we want them to follow. When a child accidentally touches a flame, he understands forever that fire is hot and dangerous. As a teacher of children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, I came to understand that my students would work harder for a better life if they saw the life they were working for. Taking the children on trips was a chance for them to become a part of America, to feel a part of our nation rather than an unwelcome guest at the party. It's admirable to encourage students to attend college one day, but more effective to take them to universities so that they can see the possibilities. When my students had the opportunity to stay in nice hotels and observe the respectful behavior of others, they began to emulate that behavior, not because of my teaching or inspiration but through the examples they witnessed.
So parents and teachers, listen up. It's time to hit the road with a group of kids. Preparing the students for the trip is important. Once that preparation is done, the kids not only have a better time, but learning will take place in ways you could never predict. Through the opportunities these trips create, the students are allowed to discover important lessons by themselves and, in doing so, take charge of their future lives.
Excerpted from There Are No Shortcuts by Rafe Esquith. Copyright © 2003 Rafe Esquith. Excerpted by permission of Anchor, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
On Teacher Selection
ON TEACHER SELECTION
To all my readers who are parents or just concerned citizens, I implore you to be vigilant when it comes to the public schools. There are constant battles behind the scenes at which your presence could be beneficial.
Perhaps I have an unusual view of the world of education, but each and every day I walk into my classroom and I remind myself of something important: I remember whom I work for. It's not my principal, who is a good guy with many positive qualities. It's not any of his assistants, some of whom I like and some of whom never met Will Rogers. It is certainly not the children, although some teachers forget this and actually believe the children should have an equal voice in the daily running of a classroom.
Excerpted from There Are No Shortcuts by Rafe Esquith
(Anchor, May 2004).
I work for the parents and the taxpayers. They are the people who pay me and they are the people I serve. It's my job to provide them with the best service I possibly can. This is not always easy or convenient. I simply believe that anyone who becomes a teacher must accept that there are certain parts of the job not described in the contract. As a teacher, I accept the fact that not all the children will be easy to teach. I know that I will often be called on to stay after school to help a child in need. I know that large amounts of my personal time will be spent shopping for my class and planning my lessons. My wife, Barbara, a nurse for fifteen years, taught me that her shift at the hospital did not end when the clock struck a certain hour; it ended when her patients were well cared for, comfortable, and in the hands of the next shift. If that meant staying an extra hour on certain days because a patient needed a hand held or a back rubbed, Barbara was there. It was the job. The same is true for other service professions, and teaching is no different.
In an elementary school, the single most important factor in determining the progress of your child is: Who will be the teacher for the year? Your child will be spending thousands of hours with this person. We all know that the teacher creates the weather in a classroom. Will it be a happy place? Will your child be challenged without being frustrated? Will your child have a voice? We have all been in classrooms and know that it's the teacher who holds the answers to these crucial questions.
As a parent, one of the best things you can do for your elementary-aged children should happen a few months before their next school year. This is the time when schools begin to pencil in which teacher will teach which grades. Most parents know nothing about this process. When this selection occurs, the current school year is well under way and the parents have been to Open House, have seen report cards, and have had a parent conference. Most parents assume that they've done their duty until they turn up the following year to meet the new teachers and check on their child's progress. Yet one of the most important things parents can do is to be part of the process of teacher selection for the next school year. I've seen schools where the local PTA is actually part of the hiring process, and this is as it should be. But this isn't what happens at the Jungle and many other schools, and parents need to know what is going down.
My friend David Bryan, the charismatic and dynamic principal of New Roads School in Santa Monica, California, once told me that part of being a good principal is to have a little bit of the fascist in you. He was joking, of course, but his point was well taken. In the best circumstances at a school, a powerful but caring principal will decide which teacher will teach which class. He will consider teacher requests and personal situations, but in the end, he will ask himself which teacher is right for a particular situation and a particular group of children. When a manager of a baseball team fills out the lineup card, he chooses the best players for each spot; it's his job to put his team in the optimal position for winning the game.
Most principals are decent people. If they could have things their way, they'd examine a list of all the classes that will be taught the upcoming year, look at their roster of teachers, and create the best matches. In doing so, they would try their best to make sure that a fair system would be in place to settle things if two teachers wanted to teach the same class. Of course, the bottom line should be which teacher would do a better job, but that's not the way it usually works. Decisions can be based on connections rather than on what's best for the children, and as a result, the union's solutions can be disastrous for the kids...
So parents, get involved with teacher selections in your local schools. Be vigilant. Your child's future is at stake, and you may be the only one who will speak up for her interests.
Excerpted from There Are No Shortcuts by Rafe Esquith. Copyright © 2003 Rafe Esquith. Excerpted by permission of Anchor, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
On Teaching
ON TEACHING
I'd like to give every young teacher some good news. Teaching is a very easy job. Administrators will tell you what to do. You'll be given books and told which chapters to assign the children. Veteran teachers will show you the correct way to fill out forms and have your classes line up.
(Anchor, May 2004).
And here's some more good news. If you do all these things badly, they let you keep doing it. You can go home at three o'clock every day. You get about three months off a year. Teaching is a great gig.
However, if you care about what you're doing, it's one of the toughest jobs around. If you care, and if your eyes are wide open, beware: your school is filled with bad guys. There are a few heroes around too (no one will point them out to you -- heroes are usually unrecognized). But the bad guys can be more than just mediocre teachers or administrators, incompetent individuals who do a poor job of teaching; they'll make you sad, but at least you can focus on your own students. Some bad guys will actually go out of their way to prevent you from doing your job, even when you're minding your own business.
And parents, you certainly don't want your children around such people, so be careful. Spend as much time at your school as possible. Sit in on classes. Do not be fooled by someone who appears to be a hero because he dresses well or speaks smoothly. Get to know what's really happening in the school, so that you can direct your child toward the heroes and steer her away from the villains.
Related: Learn more about Rafe's teaching methods and his top 10 tips for fundraising in For Educators.
Next: The Hobart Shakespeareans' Recommended Reading List »
Excerpted from There Are No Shortcuts by Rafe Esquith. Copyright © 2003 Rafe Esquith. Excerpted by permission of Anchor, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.