Teacher Appreciation Week: Rafe Esquith, "The most interesting and influential classroom teacher in the country." -The Washington Post

Rafe Esquith is a 5th Grade teacher at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School in a very rough neighborhood of Los Angeles. Most of his students come from immigrant families where there is no English spoken as a first language and 90% are living below the poverty level. Yet his students come to school 2 hours earlier than anybody else, stay far longer (sometimes to 6pm) and achieve impressively high scores on standardized tests. Every April this class, known as The Hobart Shakespeareans, put on a Shakespeare play. His remarkable methodology is documented in several books:


Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire
Perhaps the most famous fifth-grade teacher in America, Rafe Esquith has won numerous awards and even honorary citizenship in the British Empire for his outstandingly successful methods. In his Los Angeles public school classroom, he helps impoverished immigrant children understand Shakespeare, play Vivaldi, and become happy, self-confident people. This bestseller gives any teacher or parent all the techniques, exercises, and innovations that have made its author an educational icon, from personal codes of behavior to tips on tackling literature and algebra. The result is a powerful book for anyone concerned about the future of our children.

Lighting Their Fires

In his bestselling book, Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire, readers were introduced to Rafe Esquith and his extraordinary students in Hobart Elementary School's Room 56. Using his amazing and inspiring classroom techniques, Esquith has helped thousands of children learn to maximize their potential. In Lighting Their Fires, Esquith shows that children aren't born extraordinary; they become that way as a result of parents and teachers who instill values that serve them not just in school, but for the rest of their lives. Framed by a class trip to a major league baseball game, Lighting Their Fires moves inning by inning through concepts that help children build character and develop enriching lives. Whether he is highlighting the importance of time management or offering a step-by-step discussion of how children can become good decision makers, Esquith shows how parents can equip their kids with all the tools they need to find success and have fun in the process. Using examples from classic films and great books, he stresses the value of sacrifice, the importance of staying true to oneself, and the danger that television can pose to growing young minds. Lighting Their Fires is that rarest of education books: one that explains not just how to make our children great students, but how to make them thoughtful and honorable people.

There Are No Shortcuts
Year after year, Rafe Esquith’s fifth-grade students excel. They read passionately, far above their grade level; tackle algebra; and stage Shakespeare so professionally that they often wow the great Shakespearen actor himself, Sir Ian McKellen. Yet Esquith teaches at an L.A. innercity school known as the Jungle, where few of his students speak English at home, and many are from poor or troubled families. What’s his winning recipe? A diet of intensive learning mixed with a lot of kindness and fun. His kids attend class from 6:30 A.M. until well after 4:00 P.M., right through most of their vacations. They take field trips to Europe and Yosemite. They play rock and roll. Mediocrity has no place in their classroom. And the results follow them for life, as they go on to colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford.

Possessed by a fierce idealism, Esquith works even harder than his students. As an outspoken maverick of public education (his heroes include Huck Finn and Atticus Finch), he admits to significant mistakes and heated fights with administrators and colleagues. We all—teachers, parents, citizens—have much to learn from his candor and uncompromising vision.

More about Rafe

Info about The Hobart Shakespearians