Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire

I happened across a copy of Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56 by chance. In the library, lost amongst the new non-fiction, it popped out at me as I idly looked over the shelf, waiting for some woman to stop screaming at the librarian long enough for me to check out my materials. (Honestly. What kind of a head case screams at a librarian? Only in LA.) The book practically hopped into my hand. And I'm so glad!

Rafe Esquith teaches his fifth-graders one basic principle: "Be nice and work hard." And it works. He teaches them to trust him and to allow him to trust them in return. And it works. He teaches them Shakespeare and Vivaldi and gets them to join bookclubs that meet before school and shows them how to study for tests and how to think about other people before themselves. And it works! And, as Esquith asserts, he isn't particularly special--neither are his students. It's just that he approaches each day as not just an opportunity to turn his pupils into better students--but to help them become better human beings.

Eschewing the fear tactics many desperate teachers resort to, Esquith demonstrates how the teacher should be the nicest, hardest-working person the students know:

"I answer all questions. It does not matter if I have been asked them before. It does not matter if I am tired. The kids must see that I passionately want them to understand, and it never bothers me when they don't...We parents and teachers get mad at our kids all the time, and often for good reason. Yet, we should never become frustrated when a student doesn't understand something. Our positive and patient response to questions builds an immediate and lasting trust that transcends fears."

He also questions the value of presenting students with simplified, "dumbed-down" texts rather than the real thing. Why have students read a selection from The Diary of Anne Frank when they could read the whole thing? Of course, you have to present the material in a way the students find accessible and easy-to-follow, but Esquith believes in bringing materials to the classroom you are truly passionate about. He explains why just letting students read without the proper guidance doesn't always work so well:

"The students were too young to understand anything in the book. They were given no background on World War II and couldn't even find the Netherlands on a map. Seemingly incomprehensible abbreviations and words like BBC and menstruation turned off even this teacher's most diligent students. When they later came to my class, they moaned when I told them Anne Frank was on our reading list."

What I really like about this book is that it's not just a list of lesson plans. (Although he does have some great ideas that work for students of all ages.) Esquith is, essentially, a philosopher. He lays his brain and his heart out on the page, urging readers to believe that respect, honesty, kindness, and compassion are a teacher's greatest tools, even under the most frustrating circumstances. And he's from LAUSD.

Basically, Esquith wants us to follow the same advice he gives his students. Be nice. Work hard. Sounds simple enough, right?

I'm only part-way through the book, but I'm really enjoying it so far. Pick up a copy, and we can talk about it!

Hamlet

No Fear Shakespeare is the young, hip division of Sparknotes that translates Shakespeare classics into "the kind of English people actually speak today." If you want to journey even further into the bowels of hip-dom, pick up one of No Fear's Graphic Novels--illustrated by established artists and presented in backpack-friendly paperbacks.

Although I don't expect my students to start spouting soliloquies, I do want them to be at least passingly familiar with Shakespeare and his language. So, this term we're studying Hamlet--just a little taste of it for fifteen to twenty minutes every Thursday. I started off by telling them the story the way I would if we were sitting around a campfire, with lots of jokes and hand gestures to keep them excited. Now I'm showing them the story again, this time accompanied by pictures from the Hamlet graphic novel. Next week, we'll watch scenes from the movie, and then we'll finally start reading parts of the play ourselves. (I meant to bring in an audio CD last week, but it just didn't happen. Boo, me.)

If you think "graphic novel" is the fancy new term for "comic book," think again. This version of Hamlet is surprisingly imaginative and smart, as well as emotionally gripping. I studied Hamlet as part of my playwright training in college, and I still learned new stuff! For example, the scene in which Ophelia cracks up and starts handing out flowers...Ophelia tells us that rosemary is for remembrance, but then she passes out a whole bouquet of buds without much comment. The graphic novel puts little scrolls next to the flowers to let the reader know what they represent. Ophelia gives the queen columbines and fennel--a sign of adultery. She gives the king rue, for repentance. (The illustrator shows Ophelia giving him a knowing little wink here.) She gives herself a daisy, for unhappy love. And she speaks of the violets that whithered when he father was murdered; violets stood for faithfulness.

I especially love the way the prince himself is portrayed--a slim, trenchcoat-wearing, heavy-lidded youth with pale skin and crazed dark eyes. This is no Mel Gibson or Kenneth Branaugh. This is Hamlet as he's always appeared in my own mind's eye: impossibly young and heartbreakingly fragile. When he dies, you feel the tragedy of his wasted life.

Whether you're teaching Shakespeare to others or just enjoy the classics yourself, No Fear Shakespeare's Graphic Novel of Hamlet is a refreshingly accessible resource. And, at about $10, it's easy on the wallet.

Baghdad Museum

If you're using the AMP Reading System, The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad: The Lost Legacy of Mesopotamia is a really great supplement to the Unit 3 stories about the same subject.

I picked this little number up at my local library. We've already discussed the Iraq War, and we watched a documentary and read an Iraqi woman's blog to get some background. Now, after reading the AMP stories about the plundering of one of the most important museums in the world, we took a virtual "tour" of the museum as it once was by projecting images from the book onto the white board and reading the curators' notes. It's great, because the AMP book mentions (but doesn't have pictures of) several of the pieces highlighted in the The Looting of the Iraq Museum. So my students felt like, "Hey! I know about that!"

We also practiced scanning for information. I'd say something like, "Somebody tell me about cylinder seals, and my students would find the information in their AMP books. After we reviewed the section, we'd look at the real thing.

Afterwards, my students were really able to discuss intelligently the situation in Iraq, as well as the concept of what makes a thing valuable. They tsk-tsked over the loss of such precious works of art, sometimes gasping out loud when I showed them something that had been destroyed beyond repair or stolen and never seen again.

Book List

It's easy to forget what being a teenager was like--the awkwardness, the confusion, the certainty that high school would never, ever end. Here are a few books that will put you in touch with your inner adolescent and, hopefully, make you more sympathetic the next time you're faced with a roomful of them.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Written from the point-of-view of Melinda, a freshman outcast who refuses to speak for a whole year, Speak is insightful, very funny, and a quick read. (Everything I love in fiction!) I actually picked this up for my students, but it totally sucked me in as a piece of good literature in its own right. There is a made-for-tv movie version, as well. I haven't seen it, but one of my teenage students recommended it. So there you go.

Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen

I became familiar with this book in Lynne Porter's lesson planning class through UCLA Extension; she did this really great activity where the whole class reads one or two chapters each and then pieces the story together. Very effective and fun.

The plot follows an angry juvenile delinquent who is sentenced to spend a year alone on an island, gets his butt righteously kicked by a bear, and must learn how to rebuild his body and spirit. My teenagers failed to make the connection between the main character and themselves, but my adults loved it, particularly those who have done jailtime.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

My mother has been an educator all her working life, and she says, "I think anyone who teaches should read this. It really shows you why students need the utmost kindness and understanding; you just never know what things are like at home."

I expected something syrupy and woe-is-me after that little lecture, but this memoir blew me away. It follows the dysfunctional Walls family as they move from place-to-place, led by their brilliant but deeply flawed parents. The neglect Walls describes is appalling, yet she tells her stories with such wit and honesty that you find yourself laughing out loud when you aren't shaking your head.

I read a chapter of this out loud to my classes--both the teenagers and adults--and they both responded to it really well, asking if I would please read more.

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis is a graphic novel about Satrapi's life in Iran after the Islamic Revolution. She describes how her liberal childhood gave way to repression, fear, and veils as she grew older and the Islamic regime took hold. Not only does the book provide great lessons on culture and history, it is honest, touching, imaginative, and (yes, I'm going to say it again) funny. Marjane's struggle to remain "punk rock" despite increasing religious conservatism is both poignant and hilarious. Read the first few pages and just try to put it down. I dare you.

While you're at it, be on the look out for the DVD of the movie version. It's fantastic.

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What about you? Read any good books lately?