User reviews

Shining documentary for PBS strives to be something extra special, touching on the personal reexamination of our formative years while looking ahead at the next generation. There's not a grandstanding moment in the hour as Los Angeles teacher Rafe Esquith of Hobart Elementary School goes through his own personal rigors to teach a class of inner-city immigrant 5th graders all the standard elementary school topics as well as Shakespeare, and at the end of the year they perform "Hamlet" for their amazed families. I was amazed, too, at how Mr. Esquith turns a classroom into a stimulating forum for ideas. This valentine to education manages to be both emotionally rich and intellectually provocative. One not only watches but winds up reconsidering his own years in grade school. Esquith has his bad days, admitting there are times when he feels like packing it in, but he also knows that he'd be cheating many children by giving up--and cheating himself as well. Ironically, a teacher such as this, so effective at reaching his students, is actually resented by his colleagues working at the same school (it's like a high school-pecking order but amongst adults). And yet, Esquith proves to be heroic. This simply-shot, simply-produced hour (with wonderful appearances by Ian McKellen and Michael York) shows that lives are being changed, year in and year out, by one person who gives a damn. When the kids are gathered for one last goodbye backstage, it is a graduation of honors--and they've earned it. These students, with their futures before them like an open book, have learned to love learning--no easy task for a teacher. "The Hobart Shakespeareans" should touch a lot of people.

....But Before Diving In HERE...FIRST: Let us FOCUS on the Title's Content and Context.....

HOBART ELEMENTARY is about a mile from Saint Michael´s Elemntary... The Catholic Grade School I attended! Now... Many years later...Having been an ENGLISH teacher myself for 50 years, there is nothing I find more inspirational than watching the burning intensity of passion for teaching displayed by people like Rafe Esquith and the pure joy of learning exhibited by his students in the classroom.

Truly gifted teachers comprehend the symbiotic nature of the teacher/student relationship! Working mostly with inner-city kids who speak a foreign language at home, Esquith demonstrates what can be accomplished when the bar is set high by someone who dares to be inspirational to children others complacently might have expected nothing more than being able to read at grade level!

Even If you have never been a teacher, certainly you've been a student...and this documentary will lift the hearts of both teachers and students alike!

ENJOY! / DISFRUTELA!

Yes, I too laughed and I too cried at this wonderful experience of how it could be for our children. This is the counter to Richard Mitchells "Graves of Acadame" where he says:

It is possible, of course, to keep educated people unfree in a state of civilization, but it's much easier to keep ignorant people unfree in a state of civilization. And it is easiest of all if you can convince the ignorant that they are educated, for you can thus make them collaborators in your disposition of their liberty and property. That is the institutionally assigned task, for all that it may be invisible to those who perform it, of American public education.

Yet Esquith is scorned for his vigor, like a bunch of day laborers ganging up on an over achiever in ditch digging. Every child has the potential to be the next dozen or so Einsteins we need to understand the universe. They may not be college material but they all can be 5th graders. Esquithian ethos is a gem at Hobart, thank you for raising the bar Mel and Rafe.

This great film, don't miss the directors commentary, inspired Rafe's book Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire, where we learn that he is the FIRST teacher to get the Medal of Science for his pedagogy. Here in Texas our principal has bought a copy for every teacher in our school (my biggest coup). A stranger (me) highly recommends this film to all parents with a giant two thumbs up and MUST SEE rating ***** if you want to get out of Mitchell's hell.

THE HOBART SHAKESPEAREANS is a riveting, life-changing documentary on Rafe Esquith, 1992 American Teacher of the Year and also National Medal of Arts recipient (plus many other teaching awards, including Oprah's Use Your Life Award), who teaches fifth-grade in a dangerous, poor, drug-infested 100% Latino/Asian neighborhood in L.A. to kids whose parents do not speak English.

He even has them performing an entire Shakespeare play to live audiences every year. The film had me in tears several times, and the kids themselves were in tears several times -- when Rafe is reading and describing Huck Finn's difficult choice about turning Jim in; and when the school year ends and the fun and learning is over for the students.

Rafe does even much more than this with these students, and he makes sure they are well-loved, well-traveled, and well-equipped not only to continue their academic trajectories, but also to live wisely and richly. His limitless enthusiasm and passion for teaching and for mentoring and for the life of the mind and soul is contagious.

Rafe is also the author of several well-known books describing his teaching philosophy, insights, and methodology.

The film is a grand inspiration and absolutely full of ideas and hope and sensible advice!