BY 2008, HARRIETT BALL ENTERPRISES INC., the corporate identity of the gravelly-voiced educator who saved Levin and Feinberg from classroom disaster, had trained teachers in Georgia, New York, Indiana, Illinois, Nevada, Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Oregon, Kentucky, California, South Carolina, Florida, Missouri, Kansas, Michigan, and of course Texas.
Ball’s clients often asked her to come back. What she called her “total body participation” approach to teaching elementary school students captivated principals and gave teachers a good physical workout while they learned the rhythms. Her Web site, harriettball.com, translated her chants and games and workbooks into the technical language that educational consultants like her needed to be taken seriously. The Web site discussed “multi-sensory teaching” and cited the work of the Harvard educational psychologist Howard Gardner, particularly his view of the importance of tactile-kinesthetic intelligence. Ball’s mnemonic technique, her Web site said, “builds long-term memory and boosts the ability to easily transfer to higher level thinking.” The Web site said, “Our Mission: Leave NO teacher OR child behind. Now the Ball is in your court. What are you going to do with it?”
Ball reminded Web site visitors that “her teaching style is divinely designed for those who are not mathematically inclined and/or learning challenged in any basic subject area.” Ball explained to her trainees: “Math is abstract, full of rules. And the rules have rules, the kids don’t know what they mean. So the kids become frustrated, and they give up. I will take what they are already familiar with, something concrete. I notice the radio plays songs over and over. You might hate the words to them, but you still remember them.”
Academic experts confirmed she was on the right track. Patricia Campbell, an associate professor of mathematics education at the University of Maryland, said students needed to understand multiplication and know when to use it to be proficient in math. But if students didn’t remember their facts, it was harder to be proficient. A 2007 study by Accurate Learning Systems Corp. suggested that less than one in five American fifth graders knew their multiplication tables. Campbell said one of the keys to methods like Ball’s was that “the children like it, and therefore they do it, and they practice it.”
Ball had an impressive home in an affluent suburb north of Houston. She had many friends and a strong connection to her former apprentices, Levin and Feinberg. She was a regular presence at KIPP training sessions and the summer summit. Despite that success, she missed her students. In 2007 she cut back on travel and drew up plans for her own charter school. She picked out a low-income neighborhood of north Houston called Acres Homes. The school she envisioned would cover grades two to five and have a teacher-training institute so that she could invite other educators to see how it ought to be done.
She planned to start with thirty students per grade and take it from there. She had a pinched nerve in her right leg. If she had to walk long distances, she used a wheelchair. But that, she said, was fine. “Just get me in the building,” she told a friend. “They want what’s in my head, and I can teach without my legs.”
BY 2008, RAFE ESQUITH was the most interesting and influential public school classroom teacher in the country. He had become a best-selling author. His first book, There Are No Shortcuts, a short autobiography, had done well. His second book, Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire: The Methods and Madness inside Room 56, was a sensation. He was on several best-selling lists, was being translated into foreign languages, and was speaking constantly. Yet he still arrived at Hobart each morning at 6:30 a.m. He often found several students waiting for him and his early morning thinking-skills class. He remained until dinnertime and was often in room 56 on weekends, vacations, and holidays, helping former students study for the SAT and prepare their college applications.
During one ordinary day in early 2006, there were forty students in room 56, including several alumni who had come to visit. Esquith’s fifth graders rehearsed Shakespeare, practiced music, read and discussed parts of To Kill a Mockingbird, and played a game called buzz. The class counted to one hundred, with Esquith pointing to students in turn. If the next number was a prime number, the student had to say “buzz” instead.
As in previous years, he taught his class how to play baseball, with step-by-step precision and practice as if he were teaching them how to defuse a bomb. He ran the Young Authors project, in which each student over the course of a year wrote a book. He continued to have his students learn the surprising rules of finance by running an entire economic system in the class, with paychecks, rents, and many other real-world complications.
His relationships with Levin and Feinberg had had their ups and downs. He saw imperfections in KIPP. But he also welcomed KIPP classes and teachers who wanted to see the Hobart Shakespeareans. He seemed proud that his two disciples had gone so far.
His wife, Barbara, set him straight on his more outlandish decisions. Her four children did the same. One of them, a physician named Caryn, told him that a class he had just proudly demonstrated for her “may be the worst science lesson I have ever seen.” So he found a way to get lab equipment suitable for ten-year-olds and brought the science class up to her standards. He always looked for ways to improve. He frequently puzzled people who found it hard to relate to such overwhelming dedication, but it worked for him and for his students.