Pursuing Happiness, Through Hard Work

Rafe Esquith, who teaches fifth and sixth grades in Los Angeles, says he has had to fight the myth that learning is always fun. (Jonathan Alcorn For The Washington Post)

One in a series of occasional articles highlighting the philosophies and techniques of innovative teachers

It was 1985, and Rafe Esquith was beginning his third year of teaching in Los Angeles public schools. He faced a class of 40 sixth-graders from low-income homes where English rarely was spoken, and the best reader among them was two years below grade level.

So, what the heck, he decided to teach them Shakespeare.

Five families agreed to let their children rehearse "Macbeth" for two hours after school. This proved to be so much fun that, within weeks, Esquith had 28 Asian and Hispanic kids gleefully soaking up the drama of blood and betrayal in medieval Scotland. They were learning many words they had never heard before.

But when Esquith asked a school district supervisor for official approval, he received this note: "Mr. Esquith, it is not appropriate that you stay after school to teach Shakespeare. It would be better if you did something with the children that is academic."

It would not be the last time that the narrow thinking of big-city school administration got in Esquith's way. Yet after 19 years at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School in the Mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles, the bearded, 6-foot-tall cyclone has proved that a teacher who thinks very big -- much harder lessons, larger projects, extra class time -- can help disadvantaged children in ways most educators never imagine.

His fifth-grade students read at the 88th percentile in 2002, while the school's fifth-graders overall were at the 42nd percentile, making the power of his innovations obvious to the many experts and community leaders who come to see what is happening in Room 56.

Esquith teaches a class of 32 students. He not only has them reading Dickens, Salinger and Steinbeck, but also introduces algebra and takes them on long road trips, sometimes overseas. It all works, he said, because they are in class from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. -- this time, with the school district's consent -- and because he does not take vacations (he uses the time to meet with students during the nine-week fall break in Hobart's year-round calendar).

His students and their parents choose the longer days and vacation classes because of the reputation Esquith has built at the sprawling, 2,130-student school. Some say he gets the best students, but their test scores were much lower before they arrived in his class.

One of his current students, Damian Mendieta, 10, said reading "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" has been hard for him, "but Rafe tells us the parts I didn't know." Kimberly Hong, also in the class, said at any sign of puzzlement, "he will explain on the board, he will take questions."

Esquith, 49, has a dramatic view of himself. He has no desk in his classroom and is usually on his feet, which he likens to "Henry V exhorting his soldiers to fight on St. Crispin's Day." At least 90 minutes a day, the class does nothing but read adult novels aloud, with weaker readers getting shorter, easier assignments but finding more demanded of them as the year progresses.

Each child reads a book a month of his or her own choosing, usually from a shelf of award-winning children's books. Everyone has a grammar exercise at the beginning of the day, and students who do not get at least 90 percent correct must do what the class calls the "dreaded rewrite" until they see their mistakes.

Esquith is convinced that regular fifth-grade mathematics is a boring repetition of what should have been learned before. Once he has everyone's arithmetic up to speed, he starts his students on algebra, and has a special Saturday class for sixth-graders that gets deep into the subject.

This was daunting at first, until he stumbled upon a concept of teaching that is at the core of his success. American children, even those from hardworking immigrant cultures, have in Esquith's view been wrongly taught that learning should always be fun, by teachers who think hard lessons are bad for kids from low-income homes. When faced with something difficult, such students don't know what to do.

The Declaration of Independence says Americans are entitled to the pursuit of happiness, but the emphasis in public schooling has been on the happiness, he believes. "What happened to pursuit?" Esquith said.

So he has created an entirely new universe in his classroom, enshrining effort and the slogan, "There Are No Shortcuts," the title of his new book.

On the first day of school each year, each Esquith student has to apply for a job. "Bankers," who keep financial records for four to six students each, earn a make-believe $600 a month. "Janitors," who have to keep a specific area of the classroom spotless, make $650 a month. And there are an assortment of other jobs -- graders, messengers, attendance monitors.

What can they spend their Esquith dollars on? They have to pay rent to sit at the five or six large tables that fill the room. Each class picks its own names for these seating areas. One year the table up front, where the rents were $1,000 a month, was called Bel-Air and the table in back, only $550, was Skid Row.

There are bonuses for good performance, extra effort or good behavior, and fines for being late, missing homework and other offenses. Students with enough cash can purchase their own seats (and pay property tax) or purchase other students' seats and charge rent (with rent control to prohibit gouging).

The system not only teaches mathematics and economics, but also plants in every young brain the notion that hard work brings rewards. This is especially true for special occasions, such as trips to plays or concerts. Esquith has the students practice how they will behave, quietly listening to some of what they will hear. Those who can't do that don't get to go.

Esquith disdains the cinematic image of a crowd-pleasing educator, such as the Robin Williams character in the film "Dead Poets Society." The Williams character "was a lousy teacher," he said.

As for their own dramatic performances, Esquith's fifth-graders have done Shakespeare all over California and in various parts of the country. He got around the original ban on his after-school "Macbeth" rehearsals by switching to Thornton Wilder's "Our Town." When that class finally performed the play, a school district supervisor showed up.

The high-ranking district administrator came up afterward and shook his hand. "Rafe," she said, "I've never seen Shakespeare done better."