How Esme' Taught For Diversity

How Esme' Taught for Diversity

In the Book Educating Esme', by Esme' Raji Codell, Esme tells her experiences as a first year teacher and the trials and tribulations that she encountered first hand. "It's a painfully candid, often inspiring personal account... Esme' is a young, rash, exuberant, alternately innocent and street-wise, always child-wise and sometimes irrational" (200-201). She struggles to give each of the students her best throughout the entire school year. "She consumes [them] with wit, threats, music, poetry, pouts, compliments, and - always, daily - literature" (201). She does whatever it is that the children needs, but most of all she remains "...consistent, and [the children] know if they do not follow [the] guidelines" that there will be consequences (65). Esme' does an astounding job working with the kids as a whole as well as on an individual basis to reassure and nurture them; these are the things that they do not receive at home. She believes that, "'you have to be everything to them: counselor, mother, friend...' on and on" (161)

Esme' understands more on the level that the children are on. She herself "...Grew up in Uptown Chicago, the 'inner city.' [She] remember[s] being a little girl in a rented apartment...with [her] little brother and divorced father" (59). This allows her to better see the lifestyles of the children, because she has seen it first hand. "...they are beaten...their parents are illiterate, in jail, turning tricks, making them turn tricks...they are hungry, filthy...they are living in the shelter...gangs are recruiting them..." (154-155). Esme' knows how to handle the situations that arise "...[She] just let[s] them live out the awfulness of childhood...and [tries] to advise them to make choices that they can live with later on" (160).

America has long been called "The Melting Pot" due to the fact that it is made up of a varied mix of races, cultures, and ethnicities. Educating Esme' deals with all of these and more. Different lifestyles and different family lives are a big part of the children's lives as well. As more and more immigrants come to America searching for a better life, the population naturally becomes more diverse. Out of Esme's "...thirty [one] kids, all were black except for about five Mexicans kids and one girl who is from Pakistan and one girl who is from the Philippines... [and one girl from Haiti]..." (26, 35). America is shared by all who live here, and it is impossible to give every citizen an equal amount of attention, however Esme' breaks these barriers unrenowned to Mr. Turner, who argues "You don't understand. Their black...it's just the way black people are...the black child is different... (150).

Esme' modifies the curriculum to include what she feels are the most important contributions, "[She doesn't] call the subjects the old fashioned names...Math is 'Puzzling,' science is 'Mad Scientist Time,' social studies is 'T.T.W.E.,' which stands for 'Travel Time and World Exploring," language arts is 'Art of Language,' and reading is 'Free Reading Time' (29-30). She did not want the kids to have any type of "...preconceived notion of what they [were] good at" (30). She does an incredible job of opening up the young minds while making learning fun. She created "...a spelling center with spelling games, a typewriter, an electric wiggle pen, a box of cornmeal and sponge letters with tempera paint...an art center with bins of new juicy markers, craft books..." (24). She had the kids "Graph [their] favorite candy and other Halloweeny stuff in math, [had] a pumpkin decorating contest, a mummy wrapping race, estimated candy corn in a jar... [When they were studying inventors Esme'] dressed up in an outfit with