Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year

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Summary: madame esme rules
Review: EDUCATING ESME is a delightful book -- Esme Codell is fiery, smart, and honest with both herself and her students. I'm psyched that she's now a school librarian (we need more of those). Anyone who loved UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE will love EDUCATING ESME. I wish she was my teacher.

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Summary: Anyone who recommends....
Review: Anyone who recommends reading The Hundred Dresses deserves an A+. When I heard what books Esme recommended reading to elementary school age students, I knew I had to read her book, and I was not at all disapointed.

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Summary: Esme addressed emotions in learning, while hers were neglect
Review: Esme's effectiveness lay in her addressing the emotional and social aspects of learning and teaching, which are mostly neglected or ignored as unimportant in most classrooms. Seeing her students as whole people, this "Woman with Many Children" invested tremendous amounts of emotional energy into her students, and ended up sucessful but emotionally drained and burned out. Colleges of Education and their professors should address the issues of burn-out in teaching, and help students to learn how to deal with it, how to meet their emotional needs before it happens and give them tools to cope with entrenched bureaucrats. Support net works of newer teachers should be set up so that teaching and children don't lose more Madame Esmes. P.S. My child was fortunate enough to have Esme as a teacher. Madame Esme did have a lot of enthusiatic fans among parents.

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Summary: Compelling!
Review: I picked this book up in the bookstore while I was waiting for someone to meet me after an appointment. Within an hour and a half I had read the whole thing, ravenously and without stopping. When I closed it I nearly cried right there in the bookstore. The next moment I was buying it, because even though I had finished reading it, I knew that this was a book I wanted to share with all my fellow teachers, to read passages of it aloud to friends to make them laugh, wince and groan along with me at the funny, horrific and downright exasperating things Esme faced during her first year teaching. Everyone, teacher or not, should have this much enthusiasm for life and for what they do.

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Summary: I want to be in Madame Esme's class!
Review: A very powerful account of a brave, wise, and funny first-year teacher. I loved the ferocity with which she took on the administration--and I wished I could be one of her students! This book is incredibly moving and I hated to know it was going to end. Long live Madame Esme!

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Summary: Cool teacher, neat woman
Review: This is a well-written, sad, funny book that never tries to make its author look like a saint. Really honest, really touching.

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Summary: "Educating Esme" is a memoir that entertains and inspires!
Review: "Educating Esme" is told in the voice of a teacher who is charming, creative, bawdy, unpredictable, and tenacious. As Ms.Esme challenges her students to learn, the reader also becomes inspired by her passion. You will want teachers like Esme in all our classrooms, and mourn the fact that you may never have had one like her! The book gives a glimpse into the lives of our youth in inner city America, the depressing reality of who is running the bureaucracies, and how a small voice can create far reaching impact. "Educating Esme" is a great read, and should be read by anyone who was once a child!

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Summary: A great book for anyone who deals with children.
Review: A heart warming story. Everyone should have a Ms. Esme as a teacher. It's a must read. It was a treat teaching down the hall from Esme. This book is wonderful. It is the new UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE. Get it you'll love it!

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Summary: Educating Esme
Review: I read this book by the recommendation of my boyfriend and then it was used in two college courses for elementary education. It is fantastic!! I want to teach on the south side of Chicago and this book was an amazing insight into what one may or may not expect during their first year. Esme is amazing and talented and I already know that I will walk into my first classroom with a great deal of knowledge and a massive amount of ideas just from reading this book. I highly recommend this book to anyone heading into the teaching field or anyone how wants to read something enjoyable!

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Summary: Not what it implies at all
Review: This book is very witty and clever and I enjoyed reading it. Esme, however, still stands a lot to learn. As a student teacher, I expected to get a lot out of this book as far as reflections and emotions; however, it was mostly how Esme thought she was too bright for her principal and apparently thinks she could run a school much better. She is not very developmentally appropriate and takes bad advice from seasoned vetern teachers (and doesn't seem to take better advice). Although I do commend her for NOT taking another teacher's advice to not smile until Thanksgiving (what is that?)

It is still a very good read, but Esme shows me she is not someone I would hire if I was an administrator, unfortunately. I still recommend it as a good read for those student teachers and new teachers but take it with a grain of salt.