Educating Esme Analysis

Educating Esme is a diary of a first year teacher who is teaching the fifth grade in Chicago. She tells about all of the obstacles she faces in her first year of teaching. She talks about her inspiration and all of the people who make her job complicated. Teaching her calling in life, however she deals with many difficulties during her first year of teaching. Esme is extremely energetic and fun when teaching her classroom. Esme first has to deal with the principal, Mr. Turner, of the school who is arrogant, controlling and stubborn. He doesn’t like change in his school and is stuck in his own way of doing things. Esme is not your normally teacher, and the principal doesn’t like that. He refuses to call her what she wants, and doesn’t even pronounce her name right. She later on has the children call her Madame Esme and Mr. Turner hates this. He tells her that it is distracting from the learning process. Mr. Turner has others do his work and gets mad when they say they do not have time to do his job. He wants Esme to come to work early and leave late. However, he never wants to give credit when credit is due.
Everyone likes positive feedback every now and then, but this is one guy who doesn’t give it. Ms. Coil is the vice principal of the school and she is just as awful as the principal himself. She insults Esme throughout the book. Esme has to deal with violence and other difficulties with her students in the school. She had an incident with a two children. One was supposedly being mean to the other. One of the girls accused the other of taking a pad out of the garbage to show the rest of the school. So Esme tells the parent, and the parent hits the child with rolled up papers in front of her and promises to take care of it. Esme tells her that maybe hitting her isn’t the best option, but she insists it is and calls her daughter names. She deals with all sorts of issues throughout her first year. At one point another teacher gets stabbed by a student and has to be rushed to the hospital. There is not a lot of parent involvement in the school and this makes it even more difficult for her. With all the obstacles Esme faces she is still an amazing teacher.
She is not an ordinary teacher. She does fun things with her children and they learn better than the other students. She has to deal with awful administration and overcomes all of it. This is a truly inspirational book that everyone needs to read before entering into the education field. Educating Esme shows that things do no always go your way, but you have to be better than what life throws at you. This book has taught me to never give up; no matter what life throws at you. Esme’s first year of teaching was awful, however this woman turned it all around and overcame it. If she can make it though a year like that then I will be fine. She has taught me to always stay optimistic and be the best teaching I can be. Esme is an amazing teacher, and I inspire to be as good as her one
day.