Quotes from Rafe Esquith

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' I realized then where the problem lay. My students, and so many of our young people today, want a good life. They love (even if they don't always appreciate) liberty. They all want to be happy. But I realized that day that my class was a microcosm of what is wrong with some any of nation's young people. What happened to pursuit? We aren't handed happiness. We're given an opportunity to pursue it.

It's not the job of the teacher to save a child's soul; it is the teacher's job to provide an opportunity for the child to save his own soul.

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

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

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.

I want my students to love to read. Reading is not a subject. Reading is a foundation of life, an activity that people who are engaged with the world do all the time

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.

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

With such a complicated and crucial part of a child's education in jeopardy, there are many forces at work -- a sort of conspiracy of mediocrity that denies children the chance to develop a love of reading and become good readers. It is a pattern that involves our system, parents, teachers, and sometimes even librarians.

Those who celebrate failure will not be around to help today's students celebrate their jobs flipping burgers.

Those who celebrate failure will not be around to help today's students celebrate their jobs flipping burgers...Someone has to tell children if they are behind, and lay out a plan of attack to help them catch up.

End justifies the means

Self love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self neglect.

when teaching or parenting, you must always try to see things from the child's point of view and never use fear as a shortcut for education.

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.