30 Quotes by Rafe Esquith

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.

Teach like your hair’s on fire!

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.

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.

That’s the beauty of art – we strive for perfection but never achieve it. The journey is everything.

A child who learns that the past has created the present and that the present will shape the future will be willing to explore other times beyond his own limited existence.

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.

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

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.