Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire

Chalkboard champion Rafe Esquith teaches in a Los Angeles community infested with gang activity, guns, and drug abuse. The fifth graders in his classroom are the children of immigrants who live in poverty and who speak English as a second language. These students also perform Shakespeare, play Vivaldi, score in the top 1 percent on standardized tests, and go on to attend four-year universities. How does Esquith teach in ways that foster these accomplishments? He explains his strategies and techniques in his 2007 book Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire!

In his book, Rafe Esquith reveals that the two mottoes in his classroom are “Be Nice, Work Hard” and “There Are No Shortcuts.” His students voluntarily come to school at 6:30 in the morning and work until 5:00 in the afternoon. Among the lessons Esquith teaches his students are learning to handle money responsibly, traveling the country to study history, reading the American classics, and pairing Hamlet with rock and roll.

Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire! is an inspirational read for any classroom teacher. You can find this wonderful resource on amazon at the following link: Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire!

Across Five Aprils: Chalkboard Champion and Novelist Irene Hunt

Many teachers are familiar with the historical novels of Irene Hunt: Across Five Aprils, Up a Road Slowly, and The Lottery Rose, for example. But did you know that Hunt was also a distinguished teacher?

 

Hunt graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in 1939, and earned her master's degree from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in 1946. She taught English and French in public schools in Oak Park, Illinois, from 1930 to 1945. For the next four years she taught psychology at the University of South Dakota, Vermillion, and then she returned to teaching in public schools in Cicero, Illinois, from 1950 to 1969, when she retired to write full time. She published her first novel, Across Five Aprils, when she was 57 years old.

 

As a young girl, Hunt spent a great deal of time with her grandfather, who spent countless hours recounting stories of his childhood during the Civil War. These stories eventually became the basis of her historical novels.

 

Hunt was a pro at using historical novels in the classroom. She once said, "While teaching social studies to junior high school students, I felt that teaching history through literature was a happier, more effective process."

Carol Ann Jago: A Remarkable Educator

Here is a remarkable chalkboard champion: Carol Ann Jago. Carol, who graduated from University of California at Santa Barbara in 1973, worked for 32 years as a junior high school and high school English teacher in the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District. She has served as a content advisor for the Advanced Placement Literature test and also on the English Advisory Committee. Formerly, she was the president of the National Council of Teachers of English and an editor for the journal for the California Association of Teachers of English. She has worked as the director of UCLA's California Reading and Literature Project. She's also been engaged as an educational consultant and a motivational speaker, and she has published numerous books. Carol Jago is truly an extraordinary educator.

Ethel Cuff Black: The Sorority Sister Chalkboard Champion

Ethel Cuff Black was born in 1890 in Wilmington, Delaware. Her father was a prominent banker, and her maternal grandfather was a Civil War Veteran.

As a youngster, Ethel attended Industrial School for colored Youth in Bordentown, New Jersey, and graduated with the highest grade point average in her class. She graduated cum laude with a major in education from Howard University in 1915, where she is credited with being one of the founding members of the prestigious Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

After her college graduation, Ethel became the first African American teacher in Rochester, New York. She also taught in Oklahoma and Missouri, and worked at PS 108 in South Ozone Park, New York, where she taught for 27 years before her retirement in 1957. This chalkboard champion passed away on September 22, 1977.

Chalkboard Champions Contribute to Our Democracy

As we celebrate the birth of our country today, I am reminded of the role our chalkboard champions have played throughout history to preserve and perpetuate the freedoms we all enjoy. Classroom educators teach our children about our nation's rich heritage, our history, and our system of government. They lead children in the creation of hand-traced turkeys at Thanksgiving, teach them the words and music to our patriotic songs, design lessons about the accomplishments of our presidents and social reformers such as political activist Martin Luther King and labor leader Cesar Chavez, remind students of the contributions of our veterans, and organize patriotic festivities throughout the year. Our teachers even educate our kids about our failures so that we can become a better democracy.

And let's not forget that many of our nation's courageous teachers have become, themselves, a part of our country's historical record. There are many fine examples. Think of Christa McAuliffe, the New Hampshire history teacher who became the first educator in space; or Henry Alvin Cameron, the Tennessee science teacher who sacrificed his life for freedom in the WWI Battle of the Argonne Forest; or Robert Parris Moses, the New York City math teacher who played a pivotal role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's. From sea to shining sea, there are thousands of teachers in our nation's history who have made contributions to our society in large ways or quiet ways as veterans, activists, and supporters of our democracy. We thank them all for the freedoms we celebrate today.

You can read about some of these heroic teachers in my recently published book, Chalkboard Champions, available on amazon, or when my newest book, tentatively entitled Chalkboard Heroes, is ready for publication.

The Normal School: A Place to Train Chalkboard Champions

While I am engaged in reading about various remarkable teachers, I often come across terms that describe schools I have never heard of before. Such was the case when I came across the term "normal school."

I learned that a normal school is an institution which provided training for high school graduates who wished to become teachers. Today, these institutions are typically called "teachers' colleges." The normal school offered courses in subjects that teachers would be expected to teach to their students, and also instruction on how to organize and present lessons. The term derived from the intention of establishing teaching standards or norms.

The first public normal school in the United States was founded in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1839, pictured above. It operates today as Framingham State University.

Industrial Schools: A Way to Provide For and Educate Needy Children

Many times while I am reading biographies about remarkable teachers I come across a description of a type of school that I am unfamiliar with. I enjoy learning about various types of schools and I am eager to share my new knowledge with you. One school I have been learning about is the industrial school, an institution commonly established around the turn of the twentieth century, but not unheard of today.  

An industrial school is a boarding school that provided for the children’s basic needs for housing, food, and medical care. Often these schools were established to provide a means for caring for children who had been orphaned, neglected, or abandoned, and sometimes for those youngsters who were deemed incorrigible. Today, these children are typically cared for through adoption or placement in foster homes, and they are educated in regular public schools, but in the past century, industrial schools served a valuable service for these needy kids.

In the industrial school, students were taught vocational skills that would allow them to seek gainful employment once they came of age. Girls typically received training in the domestic arts or needle trades, and boys were taught vocational skills such as carpentry, shoe-making, or box-making. In addition, the young people were taught fundamental literacy skills in such subjects as reading, writing, and mathematics.

You can read more about various industrial schools in my book, Chalkboard Champions, available from amazon.