The Play’s the Thing; $100,000 Is OK Too

‘And what are the three words that set the scene?” teacher Rafe Esquith asked his class in a discussion about “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain.

“Huck says, ‘They’re after us.’ He says ‘us’ because there’s a connection between Huck and Jim.”

But what connection, Esquith asked as he paced around the crammed classroom on Monday morning, his students attentive with raised hands and eager eyes.

One answered: “Jim took care of Huck. Jim saved him from the storm.”

By Monday afternoon, Esquith was more than a fifth-grade teacher at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School west of downtown. His nonprofit organization for fourth- and fifth-graders, the Hobart Shakespeareans, was the winner of the weekly $100,000 Oprah Winfrey “Use Your Life” award--a testament to Esquith’s years of teaching his students to read and perform full-length Shakespeare plays.

Esquith, who has taught at Hobart for 16 years, has long been praised for his commitment to teaching sophisticated literature to inner-city children.

He briefly interrupted his afternoon rehearsal of “King Lear” Monday to let the 65 student actors watch the Winfrey segment, shown on her daily television show. He said he plans to use the award money to buy additional instruments, books, science equipment and a van for field trips.

Esquith, of Silver Lake, received a National American Teacher Award sponsored by Walt Disney Co. in 1992. In 1997, Parents magazine named him its Outstanding Teacher of the Year.

A former student who became a Century City lawyer helped Esquith establish a nonprofit organization, the Hobart Shakespeareans, which enjoys support from such patrons as actor Sir Ian McKellen, who flies every year from Britain to see the class perform.

Esquith, 46, graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and started teaching at Ivanhoe Elementary School in Silver Lake. But after two years, during a trip to San Diego with Ivanhoe students, he decided to leave.

“One student said to me, ‘This hotel is not as nice as the hotel we stayed at in Hawaii,’ ” he said Monday. “I thought to myself: These kids don’t need me.”

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He is committed to inner-city education, he says, because “we have to level the playing field. When the race starts, we want [the students] to start at the same place” as affluent children.

Esquith created optional activities that allow his students to participate in a school day that runs from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., 50 weeks a year. A banner above his chalkboard proclaims: “There are no shortcuts.”

He says he walks five miles to school so his wife can use the family car.

His students have performed in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, attended national Shakespeare summer festivals in Oregon, staged Shakespearean vignettes at the Globe Theater in London and even climbed Mt. Lassen in blistering snow and harsh winds.

He acquired his love of literature when his father would read him Shakespeare for bedtime stories. He said his favorite book, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” plays a central role in his everyday life.

“I don’t make a move without asking what Atticus would do,” Esquith said, referring to the book’s protagonist, Atticus Finch, a white Southern lawyer who defended a black man accused of rape. “Atticus has his own code of beliefs that he lives up to. He knew he had to be the person he wanted his kids to be.”

Students Joo Young Jang, 9, and Rudy De La Cruz, 10, say their teacher has taught them lessons about the “real world” where both winners and losers exist.

But mostly, Esquith has taught them honesty.

“Everyone has rights, but if you lose someone’s trust you can’t get it anymore,” Joo said.

Rudy chimed in, “He trusts us because he knows we’re mature. He can count on us. He’s putting his trust in us. If we lie to him it’s like lying to a good friend.”