Inspiring Wonder . . . Bettering the World

Quote of the Day

When you aid a teacher, you improve the education of your children. 

It is a wonder that teachers work as well as they do. I never look at a group of them without using, mentally, the expression, ‘The noble army of martyrs’! 

- Maria Mitchell, Astronomer.

I Know that Among My Small Following are a Few Teachers.

I have a few question for you:

Do you like to teach poetry? How do you do it? What are your favorite poems to teach? Are there poems that you feel are important to teach?

I know, I know. These aren't simple questions. But they are on my mind lately.

I'm curious since I feel so strongly about the importance of literacy and critical thinking. Our poets are often, like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, the first to raise an alarm and hold a mirror up to our warts and such.  (mixed metaphor alert)

All students deserve every opportunity for rich and fulfilling lives, and I believe that poetry can be an important part of that.

Poetry Foundation has an article by Eric Selinger, entitled "Ten Poems I Love to Teach: Surefire poetry hits for the classroom and beyond," and in it he discusses 10 poems he loves to teach, and why.

"Some poems you love, and some you love to teach.
What’s the difference?"

Here are Eric's ten. Check out the article to find out what he has to say about them.

1. “To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet
2. “Wild nights!—wild nights!” by Emily Dickinson
3. “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden
4. “The Sun Rising” by John Donne
5. “Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes
6 & 7. “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus and “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay
8. “Easter, 1916” by William Butler Yeats
9. “How Do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
10. “Beam 10” of ARK by Ronald Johnson

(A Repost) For All Those Teachers Heading Back Into the Classroom . . .

WHEN YOU THOUGHT I WASN’T LOOKING
- Mary Rita Schilke Korzan

When you thought I wasn’t looking, you displayed my first report, and I wanted to do another.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, you fed a stray cat, and I thought it was good to be kind to animals.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, you gave me a sticker, and I knew that little things were special things.
When you thought I wasn’t looking, you put your arm around me, and I felt loved.

When you thought I wasn’t looking I saw tears come from your eyes, and I learned that sometimes things hurt--but that it’s all right to cry.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, you smiled, and it made me want to look that pretty too.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, you cared, and I wanted to be everything I could be.

When you thought I wasn’t looking--I looked...and wanted to say thanks for all those things you did when you thought I wasn’t looking.

LUCID THOUGHTS on EDUCATION

from Matt Damon's 8/2 SPEECH

at a D.C. TEACHER'S RALLY:

I had incredible teachers. As I look at my life today, the things I value most about myself — my imagination, my love of acting, my passion for writing, my love of learning, my curiosity — all come from how I was parented and taught.

And none of these qualities that I’ve just mentioned — none of these qualities that I prize so deeply, that have brought me so much joy, that have brought me so much professional success — none of these qualities that make me who I am ... can be tested.

*  *  *

from ROVING BANDIT:

Clearly the correct balance to be struck between freedom for teachers and external accountability is a tough one. We don't know how to apply the correct incentives. Which is why the answer can only be testing - testing the tests - which brings me to New York Mayor Bloomberg's use of RCTs to test out 2 promising education initiatives in the city - conditional cash transfers and cash incentives for teachers. 

 

Both programs cost $50 million each. Neither worked, and so both schemes were promptly scrapped. Bloomberg deserves a medal (the Tim Harford award for experiments in social policy?).  

 

He just saved $50 million a year (or $100 million, if both schemes were to be run concurrently), on a program that makes plenty of intuitive sense, but that without proper testing could have gone on for years, with nobody knowing that it wasn't having any effect at all. 

 

How many other pieces of the education system are doing nothing?

*  *  *

from New York's MAYOR BLOOMBERG:

I think those things we should be more proud of -- the fact that we have the courage to sit there and say we thought it was a good idea, didn't work and we're stopping it. We're not going to waste the public's money.

*  *  *

Education is not the filling of a pail,

but the lighting of a fire.

 

- William Butler Yeats

 

 

 *  *  *

To the extent that we are all educated and informed, we will be more equipped to deal with the gut issues that tend to divide us.

 

- Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg

Reexamining Assumptions

... [B]e careful what behaviors you extinguish -- there is likely some really smart thinking going on where you assume there is none.

I almost told this English Language Learner to put her paper away during read aloud, but, not knowing for sure how much she can even understand as she listens, I let her keep doodling while I read, ...

She handed this picture to me at the end of read aloud, when she leaves for an afternoon of extended ELL classes. ... This is EXACTLY what is happening in the story right now.

  - Mari Lee, at A Year of Reading.

This is so true when limited communication ability is an issue.
Whether the cause is language barrier or disability, it is important to separate it from actual knowledge and understanding, a monumental task to be sure, but imperative nonetheless.

A Different Perspective on Education

Inside the World’s 

Most Surprising School System 

If we can draw one lesson from the film, it is that America has the right DNA for a phenomenal education system, we just haven’t tapped into it yet. 

- E.D.Kain, American Times.

TEACHING ELA IS ALWAYS INTERESTING

In Keeping With Yesterday's Post . . .TEACHING POETRY. A Worthwhile Endeavor.

 

Songs My Teacher Taught Me       

by Anthony Consiglio.

A series of three lesson plans intended to guide students 

through approximately one month of poetry study.

found at: poets.org.

WHY?

Reading poetry can be a great way to improve your writing skills. The principles of poetry can be applied to nearly every kind of writing you do.

* from: Learning From Poetry, on DailyWritingTips, by Erin

Myth No. 1: Poetry is painful to memorize.  - It is not at all painful. Just do a line or two a day.

Myth No. 2: There isn’t enough room in your memory to store a lot of poetry.  - Bad analogy. Memory is a muscle, not a quart jar.

Myth No. 3: Everyone needs an iPod.  - You do not need an iPod. Memorize poetry instead. 

* from: Got Poetry? in The New Your Times. by Jim Holt.

  

Oh! Oh!

(George's wife Eileen and their son Robert)

       (George and son Robert)

George Orwell on teaching (which he did for a while to support his writing)

"No job is more fascinating than teaching if you have a free hand at it - though if you are forced to bore your pupils and oppress them, they will hate you for it."  

And here's the best part ...

"The best moment in teaching are ... the times when the children's enthusiasm leaps up, like an answering flame, to meet your own."

They say he was a well liked teacher, even though he was a bit of a disciplinarian. 

His wife, Eileen O'Shaughnessy, with an English degree from Oxford, also taught. (Not that an English degree is better than any other. Although I am quite fond of mine.)

... And like every self-respecting writer, he wrote poetry too ...

A Little Poem

A happy vicar I might have been

Two hundred years ago

To preach upon eternal doom

And watch my walnuts grow;

But born, alas, in an evil time,

I missed that pleasant haven,

For the hair has grown on my upper lip

And the clergy are all clean-shaven.

And later still the times were good,

We were so easy to please,

We rocked our troubled thoughts to sleep

On the bosoms of the trees.

All ignorant we dared to own

The joys we now dissemble;

The greenfinch on the apple bough

Could make my enemies tremble.

But girl's bellies and apricots,

Roach in a shaded stream,

Horses, ducks in flight at dawn,

All these are a dream.

It is forbidden to dream again;

We maim our joys or hide them:

Horses are made of chromium steel

And little fat men shall ride them.

I am the worm who never turned,

The eunuch without a harem;

Between the priest and the commissar

I walk like Eugene Aram;

And the commissar is telling my fortune

While the radio plays,

But the priest has promised an Austin Seven,

For Duggie always pays.

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,

And woke to find it true;

I wasn't born for an age like this;

Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?

Doggerel seems to lighten the political tone in his poems.