Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher’s First Year

Esme continues to experience successes with her students, such as making a shy girl, Akila, more comfortable about her cultural identity by wearing a sari that Akila brings for her. Buoyed by the sight of her teacher in a sari, Akila begins to wear one, too, and even brings in others for three of her girlfriends.

But challenges with other students begin to become overwhelming. B.B., whose home life includes gang activity, becomes unruly and violent. He is suspended after calling Esme a bitch and when he returns to school, escorted by his mother, Esme’s attempt to plan informal accommodations for him fails. Instead, B.B.’s mother begins to punch him and threatens to send him to a juvenile detention center.

Other, similar events occur in other students’ lives. Ozzie’s mother admits that Ozzie’s plummeting grades are likely because his new stepfather is physically abusive. Ozzie often eyes the gun in the house, eager to shoot his stepdad. Another student, Asha, shows up to school with her two-year-old-brother one day and Esme has to teach while holding the baby.

Despite all of these outside-of-school dangers and complications, Esme successfully runs a storytelling festival, for which she won a grant. The event goes off without a hitch and the students are delighted and inspired. Other teachers are also congratulatory. The only ones unimpressed are the principal and vice principal, who are annoyed by the noise and location (the library, and not the common area).

Despite the successes of the month and year so far, May ends on a low note, with further outbursts from B.B., who is still being neglected by his father and beaten by his mother. Esme tries to get assistance from the school counselor, but it is plain that the only real recourse is to call in Child and Family Services. Surmising that this would create a bigger nightmare for B.B., Esme resolves to muddle through the best she can, in order to keep him safe and happy as possible at school.

The year ends with some tragedies and some triumphs. A student, Melanie, is caught stealing from staff members twice. Esme attempts to talk with her about it and reminds Melanie that if caught again, she will be sent to a juvenile detention facility. Another student, Ozzie, attempts to quell his anxiety by overeating in the cafeteria each lunch, gorging on hamburgers, and is physically sick daily, until Esme has a talk with the lunch ladies about it. Mr. Turner again calls Esme into his office to take issue with her preference of being called Madame Esme. Positive highlights include good testing results that note that all of her students improved over the academic year and some by as much as two or three grade levels. The students also write her touchingly tender letters before the year’s end. By the last day of school, Esme feels she still has more to impart but knows she must let them go.

Years later, Esme attends an 8th grade commencement ceremony to watch her former 5th graders graduate. She is shocked by the ceremony for a number of reasons. It seems to her that the whole event is simply too much for eighth grade, as if no one expects these kids to go any further than this. She is also saddened to see how few of her former thirty-one students are on the stage accepting diplomas. She isn’t sure if they moved, dropped out, or if something even worse has happened. She is also exhausted by the trite verbiage Mr. Turner offers at the event, which does nothing to speak to the real challenges of these students’ lives.

Esme, at this point, is working at another school. She is now a school librarian, her dream job. Her new principal is kind and supportive, so much so that Esme calls her “Glinda to my Dorothy” (193). The students at this new school lead safer lives, have more supportive families, and enjoy the benefits that go along with being white-collar and Caucasian. It is a better job, with less daily anguish, but at times it feels complacent and empty to Esme.