Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher’s First Year

“‘I would document the child’s behavior and then try inventions such as using successive approximations towards our goal or home involvement, depending on the individual situation,’ I explained. After a silence, I added, ‘I wouldn’t call the office every five minutes.’”

In this first interview with Mr. Turner, Esme responds to a question regarding discipline style by reiterating lessons from her study of education. She can quickly tell, though, that these answers that she rattles off are not what Mr. Turner wants to hear. Instead, he wants to know that she won’t be bothering him with students’’ disciplinary issues. When she promises not to call the office often, he tells her she’s hired.

“That’s typical. If you give people an idea these days, they just think you are sharing with them so they can critique it, play devil’s advocate and so on. It doesn’t occur to them that they might help or get enthused or at least have the courtesy to get out of your way.”

Esme shares her Fairy Tale Festival idea with the school librarian and is heartily disappointed by the reaction she receives. Esme isn’t looking for critique or even approval. She would like assistance but mostly she wants to share her excitement and offer others the opportunity to get onboard, if they want in on the idea.

“I was carried away with the idea of infinite possibility. The same sense of infinite possibility, from the sour expressions on the faces of my cohorts, that would compel someone to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. All that is really necessary, after all, is a little ‘volunteerism and imagination.’”

Esme would like to inspire her fellow teachers and prove how much they can accomplish if they put some real faith in their new ideas. When Esme offers up some of her own, however, her colleagues look baffled and irritated by the suggestions.