Educating Esme

            
             After reading Educating Esme, I believe that it is clear that Esme Codell is intrinsically motivated to help foster learning in children. Although she is a very bold teacher, with an unusual personality, she is not simply trying to draw attention to herself. She may believe that doing things in an untraditional manner helps her to teach her students well; which might be why she chooses to be called "Madame Esme." When a student asks her why she goes by "Madame" instead of "Mrs." Like everybody else, she responds that she is not everybody else. She clearly prides herself on being an individual. Mr. Turner had a problem with this because he is a very conventional man. He thought that calling her "Madame" had a "whorish" connotation, and was just too out of the ordinary, and above all against "board policy." Esme wanted to be called this because she wasn't married, was too old to be referred to as "Miss, "and didn't want "Ms." to be mispronounced as "Mrs." Turner strictly follows certain rules without realizing that bending them might be better in the grand scheme of things. For example, in the January 7th segment, Madame Esme had taken her students outside to observe firsthand the difference between deciduous and coniferous trees. Mr. Turner got angry at her for taking the children outside when it was snowing because of liability issues. He is concerned with running the school a certain way, rather than trying to enrich the students. .
             Esme was able to create a lively yet controllable learning environment in her classroom. She did this by being stern yet caring involving herself in the lives of the students. Each morning, as the children arrive to the classroom, they must individually say good morning, vent about any problems they have, and come up with a word that they are interested in. This ritual allows the students to get things off of their chest that might be troubling them at home so that they are prepared to learn, it gives each student the chance to connect with Esme, and it challenges them to ask about a word that they don't understand or one that has meaning to them.