Educating Esmé Quotes

“So much of teaching is sharing. Learning results in sharing, sharing results in change, change is learning. The only other job with so much sharing is parenting. That's probably why the two are so often confused.”
― Esmé Raji Codell, Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year

“I suppose an active imagination can be a form of madness. Or it can be the thing that keeps you from going mad.”
― Esmé Raji Codell, Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year, Expanded Edition

“Sometimes I think, Why invent projects? What is the point? How will I ever accomplish what I set out to do, what I imagine? Then I think of the past, even before I was born, the great small feats people accomplished.
[...]
Those people had to work to accomplish those things, they thought of details, they followed through. Even if I come off as naive and zealous, even if I get on everyone's nerves, I have to follow these examples. Even if I fail, I have to try and try and try. It may be exhausting, but that is beside the point. The goal is not necessarily to succeed but to keep trying, to be the kind of person who has ideas and sees them through.”
― Esmé Raji Codell, Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year

“Today so many creative and devoted teachers not only have to struggle against unimaginative administrations, fearful parents, and wearied colleagues, they have also to battle entire legislative bodies that have never taught a child yet dare to equate educational success or failure with the ability of fourth graders to choose one out of four given answers to mind-numbing questions that have nothing to do with the joy of literature or the elegance of math.”
― Esmé Raji Codell, Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year, Expanded Edition

“Sometimes a little song is sweet to hear, even if the orchestra is more accomplished”
― Esmé Raji Codell, Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year

“Why do these dumb fucks keep guns around the house? They make the world as ruinous as they imagine it is.”
― Esmé Raji Codell, Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year

“So much of teaching is sharing. Learning results in sharing, sharing results in change, change is learning.”
― Esmé Raji Codell, Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year, Expanded Edition

“Nobody really knows which is happening when the teacher closes the door. At worst, mediocrity. At best, miracles.”
― Esmé Raji Codell, Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year, Expanded Edition

“We do not argue about what happened in the past but discuss what we desire for the future.”
― Esmé Raji Codell, Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year, Expanded Edition

“The goal is not necessarily to succeed but to keep trying, to be the kind of person who has ideas and see them through. We’ll”
― Esmé Raji Codell, Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year, Expanded Edition

“Thirty-one children. Thirty-one chances. Thirty-one futures, our futures. It's an almost psychotic feeling, believing that part of their lives belongs to me.”
― Esmé Raji Codell, Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year

“...they looked so much the same; perhaps their faces were a little less doughy, more defined. Are they stunted? Am I seeing them the way I will always see them? Am I the keeper of the ghosts of their childhood selves?”
― Esmé Raji Codell, Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year

“Mr. Turner gets mad when I say, “I don’t work for you, I work for the children.” But it’s true. Isn’t it? I’ll find out when I get fired, I guess.”
― Esmé Raji Codell, Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year, Expanded Edition

“For the rest of the day I was glad I listened instead of yelled, but I still burned with shame at the thought of what I almost said and at all the occasions I have spoken harshly.”
― Esmé Raji Codell, Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year, Expanded Edition