Precisely. But as Codell recounts in her own book, Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year, creativity in the classroom doesn't always win friends in a school's administration. Codell's unorthodox practices sparked a conflict with her old-fashioned principal during her first year in 1993-94, and though she got results with her students, the worn-down teacher left the classroom after two years.
Even as she continues her career as a librarian at another school, Codell, now 30, has won widespread acclaim as an author. A radio feature based on her diary won first prize for national education reporting from the Education Writers Association in 1997. "Esmé charged headlong into the squalor of her children's lives, with love," wrote Bel Kaufman, whose Up the Down Staircase described the challenges of public education in the '60s. Now Educating Esmé, published this year, has won praise for its forthright depiction of an inner-city school, turning the reading specialist into one of the nation's most sought-after voices for empowering teachers—and against government-dictated curricula and testing. "All teachers need an approach they believe in," she says. "And that comes through a journey, not a mandate."
It didn't take long for Codell's convictions to spark a power struggle at her first school. The principal (she identifies neither the teachers nor the school by their real names) had little patience for her thrift-store ball gowns and self-coined name, Madame Esmé, she says. But even if her fellow teachers wondered about their eccentric (and, she now admits, arrogant) young colleague, they were soon impressed by Codell's way of giving once-dry topics like science and math jazzy names like Mad Scientist Time and Puzzling. They also admired the connection she made with her rambunctious, underprivileged students. "The kids beamed as they walked into her classroom," recalls fellow teacher Rochelle Cueto, 49. "I thought she had to be doing something right."
Sure enough, Codell's fifth-grade class notched the school's highest reading and math scores, and she was named the region's best new reading teacher. Still, it took only another year for Codell to burn out. "I was tired," she says. "I didn't want to defend myself anymore."
The first of two children born to Betty, a secretary, and Barry, an activity director at a nursing home, Codell grew up in a working-class section of uptown Chicago. "We didn't take trips and we didn't have a car, but we always had books," Codell recalls. "Both of my parents wrote and had great minds." Codell began studying to be a teacher soon after graduating from Lincoln Park High School in 1986 and earned a degree in education from Northeastern Illinois University in December 1992. Though her college mentor advised her to become an actress, Codell started teaching the next fall.
Married to Jim Pollock, an artist, since 1995 (the couple live in a large two-bedroom apartment with their 4-year-old son Russell), Codell is taking this fall off from her library to promote her book. She's also talking up the plight of teachers, who she says earn thousands less than the average starting salary for college graduates and yet are expected to educate, discipline and instill morals in overcrowded rooms of children. "Teachers are very willing to be accountable," she says. "But first acknowledge what we do right before you try to assess what we do wrong."
On this morning in the school library, what Codell does right is as clear as the smile on the face of 8-year-old Anthony Dufek. "I like when she reads, because she makes funny sounds and jokes," he says. "It's exciting."
Peter Ames Carlin
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Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
