By Michelle Hines, University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-5371
Posted 1-28-08
Rafe Esquith teaches like his hair's on fire.
GREENSBORO, NC – Want to spark a little magic in your grade school classroom?
Come to UNCG Monday, Feb. 25, and let Rafe Esquith and his Hobart Shakespeareans inspire you to teach like your hair’s on fire.
Esquith, author of “Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56,” teaches fifth-graders at Los Angeles’ Hobart Elementary in a neighborhood plagued by guns, gangs and drugs. Yet his students, many of them first-generation immigrants living in poverty and learning English as a second language, come to school at 6:30 a.m. and study until 5 p.m.
Why? Because they love to learn.
Esquith plans to bring along nine of his students. The event, free and open to the public, begins at 3:30 p.m. in Elliott University Center Auditorium. Space is limited as more than 200 Guilford County public school teachers have been formally invited.
“This visit has been on his dance card for over a year,” says Robert Hansen, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Everyone can appreciate the urgency of his approach to education. He’s a charismatic and inspirational teacher.”
In Room 56 at Hobart, Esquith’s students learn Shakespeare, play Vivaldi, score in the top 1 percent on standardized tests and go on to attend Ivy League universities. Esquith has taken them to perform in front of Congress and at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Globe Theatre in London. Sir Peter Hall even hired them to perform an unforgettable “Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.
Sir Ian McKellan has called Esquith “my only hero,” and The New York Times calls him “a genius and a saint.” He is the only teacher to win the President’s National Medal of the Arts, and he was named, by Queen Elizabeth, as a Member of the British Empire. He has also received the Walt Disney American Teacher Award for National Teacher of the Year, Oprah’s Use Your Life Award and the Dalai Lama’s Compassion in Action Award. Esquith and his students are the subject of a highly-acclaimed PBS documentary, “The Hobart Shakespeareans.”
For more information, contact Susan Stansbury at (336) 334-3186 or sjstansb@uncg.edu.
