I thought this was a pretty good book. I really didn't agree with all of his suggests, but I did agree with most and figured out that I was doing some of his suggests already. I am not sure if and when I become a teacher I will make my students watch the movies he suggested, but he does have good ideas. Nice read. ( )

Are you a teacher, too? Or raising kids? Or (oh dear!) both? You should read master teacher Rafe Esquith's new book, Lighting Their Fires. Have you almost given up (in despair) your hope of raising and teaching children who are respectful, hard-working, and self-motivated learners? Esquith tells it like it is. He shows us a few of his best at a baseball game and showcases their amazing behavior in sharp contrast to other children (oh double-dear!) and adults. You will be moved to try again. Esquith will light your fire so that you can light their fires. ( )

Lighting Their Fires by Rafe Esquith, really should be must reading for parents. Esquith covers many areas that impact kids and families. While many of his subjects are common sense, no brainer ideas that should be covered by parents evidently they are not. What is shocking is how some people treat him at the game with his students. There are many recommendations on books to read and movies to watch with your kids and why they are good to share with your children. ( )

This is Esquith's guide to teaching and parenting, encapsulated in a professional baseball game that Esquith attends with a handful of students. Child rearing techniques are described in a easily accessible manner in this book. If I were to only choose one book between this and Esquith's "Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire," I would choose "Teach" because the anecdotes are more vibrant. As designed, "Lighting Their Fires" reads more like a handbook. ( )

Lighting Their Fires: Raising Children in a Mixed-Up, Muddled Up, Shook Up World by Rafe Esquith is basically as the title promises a guide to upbringing children to be all they can be. I don't have children, but I interact with children on a daily basis, as a student teacher. (I haven't dropped out of the program yet, thank goodness!) Rafe uses baseball to structure his book instead of chapters, there are innings. Anecdotes are used to further illustrate his point. Also each chapter includes a section about what to put in a child's backpack. The backpack thing is a metaphor, i.e. place a sense of time in your child's backpack.The main lessons I learned from Esquith was that we should allow students to be creative (yes, that sounds about right), children need to maintain a sense of time management (well, as long as they aren't constantly staring at the clock 5 minutes before class ends), kids need to learn good decision making skills, and students ought to work hard (i.e. if you must sweep the streets, sweep them like Shakesphere). For the most part, I agree with Rafe. None of the information in the book was particularly new to me. However, it is always nice to have a refresher in basic pedagogy. I think the time and the money Esquith spends on his students is admirable, but as an educator, not something I would prefer to emulate. I know I sound terrible, but as much as I enjoy teaching, I want to have a life outside of it and I recognize that is completely okay. To be quite honest, I feel like Esquith comes across as a bit arrogant in his writing, I understand that he is super-teacher and doesn't make mistakes and teaches until 7 pm and also on Saturdays, but in reality not a lot of teachers can do that. I also thought the writing came across as simplistic, BUT it's not too terrible compared to the academic stuff pedagogy writings I had to read for class.If you are interested more in the useful teaching tips/ideas, I would say read Teach Like Your Hair Is On Fire by Esquith, it's a bit better, and in my opinion more interesting. Again, I am biased because I don't have children of my own, therefore I kind of ignore the parenting things. ( )