An innovative, award-winning classroom teacher, Esquith gives the backstory to his book of no-nonsense advice, Real Talk for Real Teachers.
Educator Rafe Esquith
Tavis: There’s no more important profession than educating students and, for more than 30 years, no teacher has done a better job than Rafe Esquith. By demanding the highest standards, he’s propelled generations of fifth graders to a love of learning and excellence that’s earned him a Medal of Arts, the only teacher to be so honored.
He’s now written a new book called “Real Talk for Real Teachers” that’s filled with no-nonsense advice for those who want to make a difference in kids’ lives.
His students are known as the Hobart Shakespeareans because of their deep dive into the playwright’s work. This year they performed “The Tempest” which became even more relevant for young minds by including the great anthem “Get Up, Stand Up” as a reminder of the importance of justice for all. Let’s take a look.
Tavis: Speaking about standing up, you were telling me before we came on camera that you were with a group of your kids in a hotel room when the verdict in the George Zimmerman case just days ago was announced. Tell me about how you talk to kids about that.
Rafe Esquith: I basically try to tell them that 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. Because that’s what the students couldn’t understand. Where is the justice?
And I tell them that’s why we all got to keep participating in this country or else you die for nothing. That’s why I want them to really become a part of our system. It’s the only way we’re going to make it better and that’s why I think a teacher is so important in getting kids not to tune out, but to tune in and participate in this country.
Tavis: But it’s summertime. Why would you even hang with these kids?
Esquith: Well, I travel a lot with my students. I try to say in the book that there are things that you can learn outside the classroom. So we hit the road a lot. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but even our kids who get to college, they don’t finish college. They’re not prepared. They don’t know about life.
So 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.
Tavis: But that’s a lot to ask of teachers beyond the classroom.
Esquith: I’m not asking in this book teachers to be like me ’cause I’m a bit crazy. But 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.
I try to show the children how every lesson I teach them is going to be something they use in their real life. That’s why my kids work so hard, not because I’m so cool. They’re working for themselves and this is the advice I’m giving the teachers in the book.
Tavis: I was gonna say, how do you use the agency? I should back up and say how do you even find the agency to do all that you do in your classroom when you are as a teacher demanded, required, to get them to pass these tests?
Esquith: You know, it’s funny. Good teachers are an endangered species because they’re giving up because of the tests and everything. I’m suggesting in this book, I have a chapter called “The Quiet Man” where you quietly rebel against the system. The system is too big for any one teacher at those staff meetings to get them to throw out all these ridiculous tests.
So I nod my head and I say, “Oh, absolutely. Of course, we’re gonna do that” and we do. But quietly, I inject my own lessons, my own outstanding books. I mean, “Malcolm X” is not on the curriculum in L.A. but we read him. And whether you agree with Malcolm X or not, it’s an important voice for kids to hear. So I do all that fantastic literature in my classroom quietly and, when my students do well on those tests, people leave me alone.
And that’s another great piece of advice in this book for the young teachers who are frustrated. If you stick with it, you can build a fantastic classroom and then teaching becomes fun. You know, this is my 31st year and people leave me alone now. They didn’t in my first five years. But that’s the secret. Stick with it. We ask our kids to stick with it. We’ve got to set the example.
Tavis: But if good teachers, Rafe, are an endangered species, what does that say long-term about the performance of our students?
Esquith: It’s terrible. This is the tragedy. You mentioned that I love Shakespeare. In Shakespeare, tragedy is not just something that’s bad. It’s something that could be good and is bad. 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.
And 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. The other great thing I have in my classroom is because I’ve done this for a long time. I have an army of former students who are constantly returning from college and high school.
So when the kids see the poverty in their neighborhood, but they see these successful kids who come from the countries they come from, come from Mexico, come from Korea, come from the Philippines, come from Salvador, and were doing really well, it motivates them to do better. The former students give them a vision of what’s possible.
Tavis: But how does teaching a classroom full of kids where the majority of them, overwhelming majority, are poor, how does that impact your ability to teach them, to get their attention, to keep them focused? Because, as you know, poverty impacts so much of what’s happening in our school system these days.
Esquith: It is the number one factor and they don’t talk about it in schools. Poverty is huge. 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.
In this book, I try to share ideas that any teacher can use to work with those kids who have not had a great start in life, but it is just a start. We can’t give up on somebody when they’re 12 years old or 15 years old or 17 years old. We can’t give up. It doesn’t mean we’re always gonna win.
And I’m very clear in this book that I fail all the time. But for me, the real failure is giving up. We tell our children you must commit to school, that this is an important place. If we give up, what does that say to them?
Tavis: Talk to me about expectations, what you expect of these kids and what they actually deliver.
Esquith: Well, obviously, we’re doing Shakespeare, algebra in the fifth grade, higher mathematics, critical thinking and fantastic science experiments. And baseball is a religion in my classroom [laugh]. It’s a very important part of life, baseball. But basically, it’s really one lesson all day long. You talk about expectations. You can’t flip a switch at 3:00 and say, “Hey, now, it’s the soccer team. This is when we try our best.”
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. So we take our work seriously in the classroom, but we also have fun. We laugh at lot in that classroom and somewhere over the last 20 years, there are a lot of schools where you see these kids sitting at attention like the Army. It might look good on camera, but those kids aren’t having a good time and I like having a good time.
So I’ve actually been to classrooms, Tavis, where there’s a rule on the wall, “No laughing.” In a classroom? Are you kidding me? We laugh all day long, usually at me [laugh], but that’s okay.
Tavis: There are always points of light in any enterprise, but tell me why I should not believe that the problems in our public education system are not intractable.
Esquith: I’ll tell you why. Because when you think you haven’t reached a child, I get letters from kids I haven’t heard from in 30 years, kids where I thought I didn’t reach this kid, I didn’t make a difference, they weren’t listening. They were. It’s just that, in the Hollywood movie, there’s that moment where the kid’s eyes light up and he goes, “Oh, thank you, Tavis. I get it now.” That’s not the way it works.
All I’m doing is transmitting valuable information and, when those kids come back, you saw the music on that screen. Do you realize all that music was choreographed and designed by my former students? I can’t do that. But 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.
Tavis: L.A. is a microcosm of the world, but I suspect in your classroom you must teach a little bit of everybody. Talk to me about the multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic dynamic that is now present in our education system.
Esquith: 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.”
No, I didn’t. Kids are kids. I know we like to focus on the differences and there are some differences. But you know what? 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.
Tavis: Every time I think of you, you love baseball. I love baseball too, but I love basketball as well. Every time I think of you, I think of Coach K at Duke.
Esquith: Oh, sure.
Tavis: Here’s the comparison. Coach K could have gone to the pros a long time ago. Believe me, he ain’t hurting at Duke. They take good care of him. But he could have made a whole lot more money years ago if he’d left Duke and they keep coming after him all the time. He coaches the Olympic team, for that matter. He could have left Duke and gone to the pros. You could have left the classroom a long time ago.
Tavis: Made a lot more money and maybe even impacted a lot more people.
Tavis: Why are you still there?
Esquith: I’ve told the kids for 30 years that what we do in Room 56 matters. If I leave, I’m lying. It means that it’s about me. I don’t even have a desk in my classroom. There’s no picture of me on the front of this book. This is not the Rafe story. This is a book for teachers to help them understand that, yes, we’re all frustrated, but there are things we can do to impact lives. If we put the students first, and I know good teachers do, there just may be a little bit of help in there to make their classroom a little bit better.
Tavis: The only teacher to be honored with the National Medal of the Arts. His name is Rafe Esquith. He teaches at Hobart here in Los Angeles. The new book is called “Real Talk for Real Teachers: Advice for Teachers from Rookies to Veterans, No Retreat, No Surrender.” Rafe, always good to talk to you, man.
Esquith: Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.
Tavis: Oh, honored to have you here anytime. That’s our show for tonight. Thanks for watching and, as always, keep the faith.
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