Top Rafe Esquith Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Rafe Esquith Biography

Rafe Esquith is an American teacher who taught at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School, in Los Angeles, California, from 1984 until his termination in 2015. Many of his students, who were all from a community of poor and immigrant families, started class very early, left late, and typically achieved high scores in standardized tests. Esquith has authored books about teaching and his annual class Shakespeare productions were featured in the 2005 documentary The Hobart Shakespeareans.

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Rafe Esquith Quotes

I travel a lot with my students. We go on the road and even learn about things like doing your laundry and managing your time. And maybe that's not on the test at the end of the year, but it's in the test of life and that's why my classroom is successful.

Goes On, Laundry, Road, Successful, Years

There's a difference between logic and what maybe people see when they're presented evidence and justice and that they're not always together.

Differences, Justice, Logic, People, See

Good teachers are an endangered species because they're giving up because of the tests and everything.

Endangered, Giving Up, Good, Species, Teacher, Tests

I don't think we expect enough of students. They just need someone to show them the way.

Expect, Leadership, Needs, Students, Thinking, Way

But to paraphrase Henry Drummond in Inherit the Wind, ignorance and mediocrity are forever busy, and the forces of mediocrity aren't content with being mediocre; they'll do everything in their power to prevent even the humblest of teachers and children from accomplishing anything extraordinary. For good work shines a light on the failures of the mediocre, and that is a light which terrifies those who conspire to keep our nation's children, like themselves, ordinary.

Children, Ignorance, Keep, Mediocre, Power, Teacher

Never compare one student's test score to another's. Always measure a child's progress against her past performance. There will always be a better reader, mathematician, or baseball player. Our goal is to help each student become as special as she can be as an individual--not to be more special than the kid sitting next to her.

Against, Baseball, Children, Kids, Student

Baseball is a religion in my classroom. It's a very important part of life, baseball.

Baseball, Classroom, Important, Life, Part

I have students who are PhDs in music who come back and scored the music and teach the kids the instruments that I don't know how to play. Those are the points of light, the former students.

Former, Kids, Light, Music, Play

You hear terrible stories because there'll be a story about some terrible kid, but most of the kids I work with are terrific kids. They're poor, maybe their families are broken, so they're not coming home to a mom and dad and a nice dinner every night. But these kids are capable.

Dad, Kid, Kids, Mom, Nice, Poor

One of the funny things about the racism of the system, when I started 30 years ago, I'm in an area called Koreatown and most of the kids were Asian. And when the kids did well, people said, "Well, of course, they did well. They're Asians. " But when we had this huge influx of Latino children from Central America, they said, "Oh, you're gonna have problems now. "

America, Asians, Children, Huge, Kids, Latino

I love Shakespeare. In Shakespeare, tragedy is not just something that's bad. It's something that could be good and is bad.

Bad, Be Good, Good, Love, Tragedy

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 chapters to assign the children. Veteran teachers will show you the correct way to fill out forms and have your classes line up. And here's some more good news. If you do all of 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.

Children, Job, Jobs, News, Teacher, Year

If a child is going to grow into a truly special adult–someone who thinks, considers other points of view, has an open mind, and possesses the ability to discuss great ideas with other people–a love of reading is an essential foundation.

Ability, Children, Grow, Love, Reading, Thinking

With better vision, we sacrifice for students for whom that sacrifice will most likely pay off. I'm sorry to say this, but there are times when even superhuman effort will not save a child from his environment or himself. It's not the job of the teacher to save a child's soul; it is the teachers' job to provide an opportunity for the child to save his own soul.

Children, Jobs, Sacrifice, Save, Teacher, Vision

The reason I love teaching, it's like being a miner. I find all these undiscovered jewels and, with the right motivation, they're amazed at what they can do. I have to show them their capability.

Amazed, Jewels, Love, Motivation, Teaching

When I have children that go home and mom and dad are not home because they're working, they're trying to get food on the table, and they come home to an empty house and they go to sleep in an empty house, there is no way that child can compete against a child from the west side of Los Angeles who both parents went to Stanford. Well, good for them, God love them. That's not an equal playing field.

Children, Dad, Empty, God, Mom, Playing

I am asking teachers to understand that we must make the education relevant for the children. If they're only working for the tests or they're only working to please us, they're not going to be interested in school.

Children, Make, Please, School, Teacher, Teachers

I always tell the kids that excellence is like pregnancy. You can't be a little bit pregnant. You either are or you're not.

Excellence, Kids, Like, Pregnancy

Kids still like to laugh, kids still like the joy of learning. When you have a cool science experiment, I don't care where you're from. When you have that aha moment, whether you're in China or Kenya, that kid's eyes are gonna open up. So I really try to focus more on what we have in common than what differs us.

Care, Experiment, Eye, Kids, Laughing, Moment

I want my kids to know that they're just as good and just as American as Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, or Dr. Martin Luther King. My worst fear is they will become ordinary.

Abraham, Kids, Kings, Martin, Ordinary

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