Quotes from Esmé Raji Codell

So much of teaching is sharing. Learning results in sharing, sharing results in change, change is learning. The only other job with so much sharing is parenting. That's probably why the two are so often confused.

I suppose an active imagination can be a form of madness. Or it can be the thing that keeps you from going mad.

Today so many creative and devoted teachers not only have to struggle against unimaginative administrations, fearful parents, and wearied colleagues, they have also to battle entire legislative bodies that have never taught a child yet dare to equate educational success or failure with the ability of fourth graders to choose one out of four given answers to mind-numbing questions that have nothing to do with the joy of literature or the elegance of math.

And when you go to God's house, it ain't got to be no fashion show. You just come as you are.

Sometimes a little song is sweet to hear, even if the orchestra is more accomplished

Why do these dumb fucks keep guns around the house? They make the world as ruinous as they imagine it is.

That file full of letters meant I met with a Special Needs teacher in the hallway to get something called Individualized Attention, and let me tell you, working in the hallway with a teacher is like being the street person of a school. People pass you by, and they act like they don't see you, but three steps away they've got a whole story in their heads about why you're out there instead of in the nice cozy classroom where you belong, Stupid? Unlucky? Unloved?

The goal is not necessarily to succeed but to keep trying, to be the kind of person who has ideas and see them through. We'll

We do not argue about what happened in the past but discuss what we desire for the future.

Nobody really knows which is happening when the teacher closes the door. At worst, mediocrity. At best, miracles.

So much of teaching is sharing. Learning results in sharing, sharing results in change, change is learning.

Oh, thank you, Darrell Sikes, for being wild and nasty and rude and getting me out of The Program and making me Normal Dumb, not Special Dumb. I owe you one, Darrell Sikes.

they looked so much the same; perhaps their faces were a little less doughy, more defined. Are they stunted? Am I seeing them the way I will always see them? Am I the keeper of the ghosts of their childhood selves?

Thirty-one children. Thirty-one chances. Thirty-one futures, our futures. It's an almost psychotic feeling, believing that part of their lives belongs to me.

Mr. Turner gets mad when I say, "I don't work for you, I work for the children." But it's true. Isn't it? I'll find out when I get fired, I guess.

For the rest of the day I was glad I listened instead of yelled, but I still burned with shame at the thought of what I almost said and at all the occasions I have spoken harshly.

The difference between a beginning teacher and an experienced one is that the beginning teacher asks, How am I doing? and the experienced teacher asks, How are the children doing?

It's not our job to be liked(teachers), I reminded her. Its our job to help them be smart(students). Secretly, I thought, who gives a rat's ass if they like us? Sometimes I can hardly stand them!

Loving children is what teachers do for extra credit. It's not the main assignment.' 'Seems to me that the extra credit is more important than the main assignment,' observed Cordelia.

I tend not to share things unnecessarily with those I despise.

You're saying she doesn't do her work? So take care of your business! Fail her like a normal kid. The failure will be between me and my daughter, then. You won't like it if her failure is between me and you.

Something's going on in Cordell's room, but I'm not sure I want to know what it is.

A library is a platform upon which we catch trains to Every Where and Any Place, Another Time and Across Space. All aboard!