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Teacher's
Pet Project
By J.C. Sharlet
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Credit:
Jim Rinnert
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Educating Esme:
Diary of a Teacher's First Year
By Esme Raji Codell
Algonquin Books
210 pages, $17.95
Stop me if you've heard this one before. A teacher with a basketful of bright ideas and a whole lotta heart takes on a classroom of kids everyone else has given up on. There's a quiet one, a lovable, troublesome one, the one-who-can't-be-saved, and plenty of fresh talkers. They're ready to chew up Teach and spit her out, but she has got a surprise in store: just call it Imagination.
Once Teach has broken through to the kids, introduced them to the magic of words, or math or science, things pick up speed, despite the obstacles thrown down by petty administrators. By now we all know this classroom epic so well that it's no surprise to learn that the toughest kid is also one of the smartest, and that behind the scared looks of the timid one is a sense of wonder. By the end of the year, a near-miracle has occurred: The kids have hope.
In a nutshell, such is the story of Educating EsmŽ: Diary of a Teacher's First Year, by Esme Raji Codell. If you go for this sort of thing, it's not a bad little book (little indeed; Codell's publisher has used the schoolkid's tricks of wide margins and big print to stretch an underlength essay into a full assignment). Codell, now a "children's literature specialist" as well as a teacher, began her career with a classroom of fifth graders at a rough Chicago elementary school. Surprised to hear an elementary school described as "rough"? Consider as evidence the time when Codell, called out of the classroom, asks a sub to stand in for a few minutes. Less than an hour later, the sub is on her way home with a flesh wound (albeit only from a pencil). Codell's response is a bit strange, though a relief in its unconventionality; she more or less chuckles. Those little tiger cubs!
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In These Times ©
1999
Vol. 24, No. 3 |