Experience, not talent is what makes a great teacher, says the man widely acclaimed to be the nation’s best classroom teacher. In an interview in Teacher Magazine Rafe Esquith says, “I speak all over the country, and I meet so many great young teachers, and I’m trying to show them that I’m a truly ordinary guy, but because I stuck with it and persevered, I got good at it. Not because of talent, but because of experience! I’m really trying to encourage a lot of young teachers to try and stick with it and get through those tough times because there are better times ahead if they can do so.”
Asked if every child can be as successful as the kids in his legendary Room 56 at Hobart Elementary School in Los Angeles, Esquith is unequivocal:
I don’t. I think there are some students where the odds are so far against them because of their family situation and other social issues. But here’s what I do know: There are hundreds of thousands of students in our school district who could be like the students of Room 56, who are absolutely capable, but they’re not being given the opportunity. I do think that the goal should be that we’re going to give every child the opportunity to be the best they can be. Right now, we’re not doing that. And as I always tell the kids, ‘It’s not my job to save your soul, but it’s my job to give you an opportunity to save your own soul.’ I can’t make a kid smarter or better, but I can give them the opportunity to become that and show them how to do that. That’s my job, and that’s a parent’s job creating opportunities.”
Obviously, this is not a page ripped from the no-excuses, teacher-must-overcome-all-obstacles hymnal. It echoes a bracing moment in the superb 2007 PBS documentary The Hobart Shakespeareans, where Esquith is seen lecturing at a Teach For America conference in Houston. “I want to let you know that some children should be left behind. I know, you read your magazine articles, ‘every child is a golden drop of sunshine.’ It’s a lie. All children must be given an equal opportunity, and our children do not get an equal opportunity. But once given that equal opportunity, the children have to produce,” he concludes. Later, offstage, speaking to a handful of young TFA corp members, he goes one step further. “Anybody who sits in there and goes, ‘I get to all the kids?’ It’s bullshit. They don’t.’”
Esquith may not be invited to future TFA conferences after his comments in Teacher Magazine. “The concept for getting some of our very bright students into the classroom is a good one. But to give these folks five weeks of training and throw them into tough classroom situations is questionable to me,” he says. “I’ve had hundreds of TFA people in my classroom, and they’re wonderful. But I don’t think the concept is going to work because nobody is a great teacher after two years.”
Esquith, who has a new book coming out this fall, also admits to being “panicked” about the current state of American education:
I think if we continue along the path that we’re going, our greatest days are behind us. But, I still believe we can turn it around. That’s why I’m still in the classroom, and I’m gonna do my best. But as long as we embrace “testing is everything,” and as long as we keep shrinking art programs and physical education programs, we’re not in a good place. Those are the things that inspire kids to do great things, so I hope we keep enlarging them, not shrinking them.
When a teacher of Esquith’s stature and experience says we’re headed down the wrong path, it’s time to sit up and take notice.
Fascinating. Policy wonks of all stripes want brilliant teachers, but brilliant teachers seldom honor the wonks’ pieties. We’re still trying to promote inspiration and compliance at the same time.
So the question is, what do we do with the kids whom even somebody like Rafe Esquith can’t teach? Not the ones who have severe disabilities but the ones whose problem is coming from an utterly dysfunctional home? There aren’t nearly as many of these kids as some folks would have us believe, but they do exist. What (if anything) substantive can be done to improve their future?
Great question, CW. I don’t know what the answer is, but I know what it’s not: Whatever we do, let’s not put those kids in Esquith’s class, tell him it’s his job to keep them engaged (and ignore the other kids and focus on them if that’s what it takes) and that he’s no damn good if he fails.
1. Does TFA tell anyone that they create great teachers within 2 years? I’m not sure I agree that TFA would disagree with Esquith. Maybe I’m wrong.
2. I think a lot of folks would agree to reduce testing if we’d be willing to follow Esquith’s advice – fire lots of bad teachers. From a book review that he wrote:
“There are terrible teachers in the system, and lots of them. We’ve either seen them or had them growing up. This year in my own elementary school, I have seen a fifth-grade teacher attempt to teach his kids about the ‘Cival War,’ walked in on another teacher showing her 10-year-old students the grisly horror film ‘Freddy vs. Jason’ and watched other teachers distribute answers to a literacy test to their students before the testing began. The authors might argue that paying teachers more would eliminate such travesties, but the point needs to be made that it is far too difficult to get rid of bad teachers.
Surely, Robert, you see the marketing problem. If the book is called “There Are Lots of Terrible Teachers, Let’s Fire Them; Then We Can Cut The Testing” it will not be a #1 Best Seller.
If it’s “Overtesting!” then it’s a hit.
Is Esquith’s book called “Overtesting?” That’s a bit beside the point, no? I like TFA, but they do bend over backwards to argue that their corps members are effective from Day One. If they said “more effective that the bad teachers they replace” it might be more honest, but not as sexy a marketing line, to echo your point. Some time back I proposed that TFA try a program of getting recruits to pinch-hit for master teachers in great schools and let the master teachers go work at P.S. Test Prep for two years. That would be more effective than letting earnest newbies try to become competent under the most difficult circumstances possible. I still think it would be a great program, and far more effective for disadvantaged kids. Wendy Kopp nicely, politely, but firmly rejected the idea.
FWIW, I’m not opposed to testing at all. But I would ban test prep.
GGW,
The Detroit News recently ran an article, calling for the DPS School Board to fire expensive veteran teachers and replace them with TFA recruits, whom they called the “Marine Corps of teaching” who “got results three times better than existing teachers” (and claimed there was research to prove this). Since I didn’t see Wendy Kopp’s followup letter correcting this misinformation, I assume that the TFA lets these little inconsistencies slide.
Everyone wants to fire bad teachers, and everyone (including teachers) has a favorite story about some egregiously bad teacher. What we don’t hear enough about is how to make merely competent teachers great (a project that takes longer than two years, BTW), or quickly get novice teachers up to speed (something you can’t do in five weeks of training).
I’m all for regular student assessment, including testing. The question is how we use those results. If we are using the tests to determine what kids don’t know yet, and how to teach it to them more effectively–then let’s test frequently. Such testing will become part of the expected cycle of learning, the presumption being that we need assessment to inform instruction.
If our goal in testing frequently is sorting teachers into bins– good, bad and evil?– we can expect to see what’s happening now: rampant gaming of the system. That’s simple economics. And nobody will ever be willing to teach the kids that aren’t teachable, because it would be suicide.
But dumb kids can come from any sort of home. It’s not just environment. Why can’t vo-tech come back?
Thank goodness for education that Rafe has passion AND common sense!
As a TFA second-year CM in Jax, I can verify that there is a significant dichotomy of approach between Rafe and TFA. Rafe has his admirers in TFA, but he isn’t invited to speak anymore, that’s for sure. Supporters whisper their aggreement. KIPP is also in this boat, despite their consulting him in their short history. Everyone wants to claim him but TFA and KIPP definitely don’t embrace him as a whole. I read his books last year, and then was fortunate enough to meet him and his kids. I have left the TFA ideological camp and joined Rafe’s. He’s so much more honest. And he is what teaching should be: autonomous and engaging, rather than militantly pursuing increases on multiple choice tests. And alas, ufortunately some kids will be left behind along the way.