The Jordan Foundation (is this really relevant?)

All of this chapter was a bit confusing to me. It probably doesn't help that I had never heard of Mickey Mantle, the foundation run by Michael Jackson's mom, nor the "Jordan Rules," but still. I would like to think that these are not extremely important or relevant for that matter...since they do not help with any confusion I already had.

Is Ms. Coil changing? Or did I never truly understand her?

I kinda really liked Ms. Coil before one scene. When she basically walked into Esmé's room to say what she would prefer, such as a different alignment of a poster or marker tray, and the height at which papers are hung. Has Coil always been somewhat rude (and have I been paying absolutely no attention to her until now)?
             Maybe if she hadn't moved the poster even after Esmé said she liked it better where it was originally...I wouldn't have lost any respect for her.

Billy Williams--Teacher for the day

I love this scene where Esmé admits to telling the kids she loves them mainly to spite them...and then Billy goes on about how it really bugs him when she says it. Then, she lets him know how hard he makes her job, and she's sick of it. "How about you see how hard you make it for me? You teach tomorrow."
      She makes this deal with him; he can either teach for the day or be suspended for swearing (his reaction the first time she mentioned the idea), arguing, and not working.

She always stays so calm in these various situations and knows exactly how to handle them, just like Ismene!

Learning about the Holocaust, no matter how dulled down, is gruesome

Since they are only in the fifth grade, of course Madame has to simplify the whole concepts and not give a whole lot of detail...

One girl, Valerie, was making a word search for the Holocaust and was weeping to herself.

• I wonder if she was sad before starting to make the wordsearch, or if the process of making it was causing her to cry...this isn't super clear to me.

Esmé Raji Codell, tremendous teacher? I think just maybe

I really appreciate her efforts to get all of her students caught up in basic subjects which they may have missed out on learning about earlier on. The alphabet, for instance, is something many kids learn in kindergarten or sometime around that. These kids, however, may not have received proper if any education on the subject.

Grand Idea: Put together an alphabet museum for the kindergartners. Each fifth-grader was assigned a different letter every day for which they'd bring in objects they can find which start with their letter for "show-and-tell" for the museum visitors.

Madam Codell sure does like to kill multiple birds with one stone!

She reads aloud to her kids the book, The Hundred Dresses, as they all listen intently and even grow closer to eachother now that they have some common ground with one another...
     Hmm...force kids to have common ground thus making bonds between them all through reading aloud to them. What a novel idea!

Puns are everywhere!

In her classroom, she made a bulletin board with King Kong on top of the Empire State Building with a caption which reads "King Kong Says Reach for the Top!"

I love how this specific reference makes little sense, but the kids just might do whatever King Kong says to do.

Mr. Turner is one creeeepy dude

Mr. Turner seems to hire the majority of his staff based off of one qualification: they have to be "twenty-something slender white girls wearing short, albeit professional skirts."

Madam Codell sometimes confuses me

She was sad that the new school did not yet have the familiar smells a typical school building has. If you don't automatically know what these smells are, that includes some type of cleaner as well as fish sandwiches. This apparently necessary for the right karma she want to have.

However, I have absoutely no idea why certain happy smells are associated with karma; I'm not following.

Mr. Turner...Had I not read he was in his fifty's, I wouldn't have guessed he was older than 30's

Anyone reading this book is probably going to agree with me on this to some extent. I have a hard time believing he really is older than fifty...Does this not prove his immaturity? Or is he just annoying and that is one thing I often associate with immaturity?

I would be annoyed too if my fify-some-year old boss called me up at 11pm just to say hello. And then pretty much beg for me to compliment him on a good job saying the exact words I suggested for him to use for a meeting that day.

Then Esmé got pay-back:
Her plan was to ignore his call that evening, and then she ingeniously set her alarm to go off around 3am when she'd call him back, saying "I'm so sorry if i woke you, but you called me so late. I knew you wouldn't call me so late if it wasn't terribly important."

Word Choice

I'm not really sure if this is a good thing or not, but there were a few times were I was reminded of myself--especially in regard to certain words she chose which I use much more often than most people.

        A few examples:
"Another gross thing at the meeting..."
Maybe its just my opinion, but the word gross seems to fit best in statements describing food or other things using your senses. Either way, I use "gross" to describe almost all things I don't like.

Other Staff Members--argh!

Why are the other teachers and school staff so extremely lazy and annoying?? They never want to do any more work than they absolutely have to.

Plus, they don't even care if the extra work might benefit the students. In fact, I bet the children didn't even cross most of their minds!

When she was proposing a "Fairy Tale Festival", her ideas were more or less shot down by everyone else she asked to help out in one way or another. After saying she'd take care of everything, and just needed a little help with supervision on the actual festival day, Ms. Coil (vice-principal) wouldn't allow it, since "everything should be a group effort." "Then, as a group, they decided they didn't want to put forth the effort. So, the end."

Random, Favorite Quotes (All are of Esmé)

"The goal is not necessarily to succeed but to keep trying, to be the kind of person who has ideas and see them through."

"Certain people just think it's their job to freak out. As long as they're freaking out, they feel busy, like they must be doing work."

"Mr. Turner gets mad when I say, "I don't work for you, I work for the children." But it's true. Isn't it? I'll find out when I get fired, I guess."

Ms. Coil: "When are you going to fix up your room so I can show it to people?"
Madame: "Just as soon as you tell me what on earth you mean."
Ms. Coil: "No time right now."
Madame: "You took the time to insult me, surely you can take a moment to back it up."

Mr. Turner, Vice Principal...hmm.

It's interesting to think about how in the world he could have gotten this job...

• He does not seem very accustomed to working with children
• He does not have much of a desire to help children learn, nor does he have a heart for kids like most teachers I've encountered.                                                                  
• After reading what Esmé said in her interview with Mr. Turner, I felt smart. I almost feel bad for this man in his fifty's because he probably never had the opportunity to receive a decent education. Basically, he appears to be less intelligent than some of the students at the school.
• He acts a bit like a teenage boy at times:
• When Esmé first met him even, he wanted her to go to some graduation ceremonies of the school where he was vice principal--he sounds like a typical, cocky teenage boy.

Diary of a Teacher's First Year

Esmé starts out this "diary" with a poem--a letter more like--written by Melanie, a fifth-grader. Maybe this was an actual thing written by an actual girl in the fifth grade, or maybe she just made it up...I'm not entirely sure.

But, if she made it up...Not only does she use words which sound like a kid, but she even spells a few words wrong like a child would do. This is just one of many times where she depicts very accurately.