Teach Like Your Hairs on Fire

Teach Like Your Hairs on Fire

“Teach Like Your Hairs on Fire” by Rafe Esquith explores various teaching techniques and pit falls. Rafe shows new and veteran teachers alike a new outlook which emphasizes that the children deserve only the best educational experience possible. This is something that is being overlooked in todays’ education system as the focus has shifted from comprehension to memorization and reiteration.  Rafe also warns against scaring children into submission that using a friendlier tone is more effective in the long run. While the points made are made well and draw on various incidents that have actually occurred in class rooms I find the overall tone of the book pretentious.

Rafe Esquith teaches fifth grade in a school in Los Angeles: Through his years of teaching he has seen the educational system fall into the disgrace that it is today. Rafe is keenly aware of the focus being shifted from comprehension level to a memorization and reiteration level. There are many factors that have a hand in the shift of focus; the importance of government tests is emphasized beyond what it should be which is putting an unnecessary pressure on the children. Rafe illustrates this shift in education by providing the reader with a time line from 1982, his first year, to 2004.  In the beginning there was a high level of importance placed on grammar, teachers received new crisp books every year, as the system deteriorated and declined this was one of the first things to go, the books became thoroughly worn and used and when they were finally replaced they were done so with far inferior books. Rafe’s description of this is most disturbing in 2004 when he receives his government tests with a note which is so riddled with grammatical errors it borderlines on incomprehensible. “Hear our you’re exams, Rafe. Their due Friday.” (48); this clearly and disturbingly illustrates the importance of taking the time to teach children proper grammar. While there are some teachers, like Rafe, who refuse to succumb to the pressures there are many young and new teachers who are too afraid to challenge the system. The state tests put an unbearable pressure on students; their classroom and classrooms to follow depend on how well they do, not to mention the quality of living they can expect in the future. This level of stress is unnecessary for students, creating problems where there shouldn’t be any. Rafe has a unique technique to dispel some of the stress holding onto his students, “first I laugh with them at the whole testing situation and ask to hear horror stories about teachers who have gone ballistic on them after poor performances.” (79) He claims this, “loosens them up.”(79) However it seems unnecessary to probe into the weakness of another teacher who is too afraid to challenge the system, or fail the system: It feels as though Rafe is trying to assert his superiority by drudging up bad past experiences which are best laid to rest.  While his intentions are good; to help the students relax. I think this would be better achieved without belittling fellow teachers to his students, after all what kind of lesson is this to teach? Rafe discusses the six levels of bettering yourself and boosting yourself up by mocking and belittle someone else is in direct conflict with these levels.

While reading this book one can feel the passion that Rafe has for teaching the children that come through classroom 56; you can feel that he honestly wants the absolute best for his students. It is however his depictions of the other teachers over reacting to situations that raises questions in response to Rafe’s argument; is it really much better to humiliate a teacher who has taken the wrong course of discipline by humiliating a student: Rafe disagrees with most discipline methods of other teachers, for example the young boy with a messy bag who was humiliated in front of his classmates. Rafe’s description of this puts the reader on edge. While one cannot help but agree with Rafe; that the teacher in question was misguided in the discipline taken, Rafe has taken the same course by making an example of the teacher. Rafe’s tone when describing the after effects is condescending, “…the teacher did not even comprehend the damage he had done.” (4) While he admits making mistakes in the beginning this makes it sound as though he is above that now, in contradiction to the second sentence in the book, “I am painfully aware that I am not superhuman.” (1) I get the impression while reading his list of ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ that while in the beginning he may have made such irrational mistakes he now conveys that he is far superior to such immature errors.

Rafe Esquith is trying to persuade new educators to take a more positive teaching path; to encourage new teachers not to be afraid to challenge the system. While his reasoning is pure and he clearly has a passion for the wellbeing of his students, I find his method of making his point disturbing. Rafe seems unware that in educating new, prospective, teachers he is making the same errors as the teachers he is mocking; by making an example of past teachers errors in an unprofessional manner. Rafe does emphasize the importance of standing your ground for the wellbeing of the students; After all isn’t this the reason anyone wants to be a teacher? Rafe makes his point clearly that all too often the goal of educating for the sole reason of educating is lost.

Work Cited

Rafe Esquith. Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire. New York. Penguin Group,2007.