Terrence McNally podcast

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Interview: Rafe Esquith, Award Winning Teacher and Author

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September 28, 2007 10:50 PM PDT

Rafe Esquith is an American teacher at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School, the second-largest elementary school in the United States, located in Los Angeles, California.

A graduate of UCLA, Esquith began teaching in 1981. His teaching honors include the 1992 Disney National Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award, a Sigma Beta Delta Fellowship from Johns Hopkins University, Oprah Winfrey’s $100,000 Use Your Life Award, Parents Magazine’s As You Grow Award, National Medal of Arts, and Esquith was made an honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth.

Esquith's fifth-grade students consistently score in the top 5% to 10% of the country in standardized tests. Many of Esquith's students start class at 7:00 each morning, two hours before the rest of the school's students. Most of his students come from immigrant Central American and Korean families and are learning English as a second language. They volunteer to come early, work through recess and stay as late as 5:30 pm, and also come to class during vacations and holidays.

Each year the Hobart Shakespeareans, as Esquith’s students are known, perform one of the Shakespeare's plays. They have opened for the Royal Shakespeare Company, been hired by Sir Peter Hall to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles and appeared at the Globe Theater in London.

Podcast Summary

Features conversations with people who offer pieces of the puzzle of “a world that just might work” -- provocative approaches to business, environment, health, science, politics, media and culture. Guests have included Ken Burns, Deborah Tannen, Andrew Weil, Jeremy Rifkin, Arianna Huffington, Roger Ebert, Bill Joy, Alvin Toffler, Paul Krugman, Bill Maher, and Norman Lear.

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TERRENCE McNALLY, journalist and radio host, is also a consultant, speaker, writer, and coach to public agencies, foundations, non-profits, and responsible corporations. Terrenceâ€™s radio show Free Forum (KPFK 90.7fm, Los Angeles, streaming and podcasting at kpfk.org, in print at AlterNet.org) features conversations with people who offer pieces of the puzzle of â€œa world that just might workâ€ -- provocative approaches to business, environment, health, science, politics, media and culture. Guests have included Ken Burns, Deborah Tannen, Andrew Weil, Jeremy Rifkin, Arianna Huffington, Roger Ebert, Bill Joy, Alvin Toffler, Paul Krugman, Bill Maher, and Norman Lear. McNally speaks on strategic communications and the power of storytelling, as well as on issues of social responsibility and sustainable development. Speaking and training clients include American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, CERES, Friends Of The Earth, Glaxo Smith Kline (Patient Advocates), Greenpeace USA, Intel, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Herman Miller, NASA, NASD Investor Education Foundation, Nemours Foundation, US Climate Action Network, US Department of Agriculture, and Volunteers Of America. His organizational work encourages and focuses communication, creativity, and cooperation; resolves conflicts; clarifies and aligns vision, mission and objectives; and develops plans for effective action. Consulting clients include the Environmental Protection Agency, Union of Concerned Scientists, Natural Resources Defense Council, Redefining Progress, Business for Social Responsibility, Global Green USA, Rhino Records, and Interface Flooring. A graduate of Harvard, where he won its highest academic award, he has also worked as a writer, producer, and director of documentaries ("Buckminster Fuller - World Man, World Game", BBCâ€™s 1992 Earth Summit special "Greenbucksâ€.) He co-wrote and produced Julie Brown's "Goddess In Progress", voted #4 mini-album of 1985 in the Village Voice National Music Critics Poll. Having acted in over a hundred films and television shows, McNally co-wrote and co-produced the musical comedy feature "Earth Girls Are Easy". Called by Time Magazine "the freshest thing to come out of the space program since Tangâ€, it is now being developed as a Broadway musical. Co-author with Hyla Cass MD of Kava: Nature's Answer to Stress, Anxiety, and Insomnia, Terrence is an annual participant at the Conference on World Affairs, a member of the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences, and has served on the boards of Earth Communications Office, Show Coalition, and Education 1st.

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