Latest Rafe Esquith Quotes from Interviews

• Kids still like to laugh, kids still like the joy of learning. When you have a cool science experiment, I don't care where you're from. When you have that aha moment, whether you're in China or Kenya, that kid's eyes are gonna open up. So I really try to focus more on what we have in common than what differs us.

  Rafe Esquith

  Kids, Eye, Laughing

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I have students who are PhDs in music who come back and scored the music and teach the kids the instruments that I don't know how to play. Those are the points of light, the former students.

  Rafe Esquith

  Kids, Light, Play

  Source: www.pbs.org

• One of the funny things about the racism of the system, when I started 30 years ago, I'm in an area called Koreatown and most of the kids were Asian. And when the kids did well, people said, "Well, of course, they did well. They're Asians." But when we had this huge influx of Latino children from Central America, they said, "Oh, you're gonna have problems now."

  Rafe Esquith

  Children, Kids, Years

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Baseball is a religion in my classroom. It's a very important part of life, baseball.

  Rafe Esquith

  Baseball, Important, Classroom

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I always tell the kids that excellence is like pregnancy. You can't be a little bit pregnant. You either are or you're not.

  Rafe Esquith

  Pregnancy, Kids, Excellence

  Source: www.pbs.org

• When I have children that go home and mom and dad are not home because they're working, they're trying to get food on the table, and they come home to an empty house and they go to sleep in an empty house, there is no way that child can compete against a child from the west side of Los Angeles who both parents went to Stanford. Well, good for them, God love them. That's not an equal playing field.

  Rafe Esquith

  Mom, Children, Dad

  Source: www.pbs.org

• When the kids see the poverty in their neighborhood, but they see these successful kids who come from the countries they come from, come from Mexico, come from Korea, come from the Philippines, come from Salvador, and were doing really well, it motivates them to do better. The former students give them a vision of what's possible.

  Rafe Esquith

  Country, Kids, Successful

  Source: www.pbs.org

• The reason I love teaching, it's like being a miner. I find all these undiscovered jewels and, with the right motivation, they're amazed at what they can do. I have to show them their capability.

  Rafe Esquith

  Motivation, Teaching, Jewels

  Source: www.pbs.org

• You hear terrible stories because there'll be a story about some terrible kid, but most of the kids I work with are terrific kids. They're poor, maybe their families are broken, so they're not coming home to a mom and dad and a nice dinner every night. But these kids are capable.

  Rafe Esquith

  Mom, Dad, Nice

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I love Shakespeare. In Shakespeare, tragedy is not just something that's bad. It's something that could be good and is bad.

  Rafe Esquith

  Tragedy, Be Good

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Good teachers are an endangered species because they're giving up because of the tests and everything.

  Rafe Esquith

  Teacher, Giving Up, Tests

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I am asking teachers to understand that we must make the education relevant for the children. If they're only working for the tests or they're only working to please us, they're not going to be interested in school.

  Rafe Esquith

  Teacher, Children, School

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I try to show the children how every lesson I teach them is going to be something they use in their real life. That's why my kids work so hard, not because I'm so cool. They're working for themselves.

  Rafe Esquith

  Children, Real, Kids

  Source: www.pbs.org

• There's a difference between logic and what maybe people see when they're presented evidence and justice and that they're not always together.

  Rafe Esquith

  Differences, People, Justice

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I travel a lot with my students. We go on the road and even learn about things like doing your laundry and managing your time. And maybe that's not on the test at the end of the year, but it's in the test of life and that's why my classroom is successful.

  Rafe Esquith

  Successful, Years, Goes On

  Source: www.pbs.org