The 49-year-old teacher, Rafe Esquith, is a genius and saint. The American education system would do well to imitate him. These children’s lives have been changed by their year with this man. And it is not all about Elizabethan drama.
Mr. Esquith’s pupils play guitar. They name the six states that border Idaho. They discuss whether Huckleberry Finn would be doing the right thing to turn in his friend Jim, a runaway slave. They visit the Lincoln Memorial on a class trip.
— From an article in The New York Times
Mr. Esquith and his students are the subject of a PBS program: The Hobart Shakespeareans, which aired Tuesday evening. NewMexiKen did not see the program, but did see an item about the class previously. The fifth-grade teacher is remarkable. Though from a “poor and dangerous part of Los Angeles,” he gives his students gift certificates to Barnes & Noble for Christmas and takes them to UCLA to show them “This is the life you’re working for.”
But it’s the students who are truly remarkable.