Found Post: "Sunday - The Night Before..."

In the process of tweaking the blog site, I discovered this last post that I did not publish from the school year. I still want to share the sentiment, even though it is now summer and this moment is long gone. It is like my own blogosphere time machine. Please enjoy:

This is the time of year when the drive from Syracuse downstate to teach for the week is the most subtle and encouraging. The snows are not so far behind that there is no evidence. The trees along the hills and shoulder have a hint of green, as if someone sifted pale green powder over the branches. Others are tinged red as malbec. Everything is waking up from the hibernation and the sun will soon be gold again, instead of silver.

I will start my last residency of the school year tomorrow. I will meet approximately 75 more 3rd graders at another school. I will invite them into the magical world of my poetry game and I will likely succeed in getting them all playing with me. I am probably at my best with 3rd graders. I have an appreciation for every age group with whom I work and share poetry. Each age, even generation, brings something different to the experience. But when I am in elementary schools, the imaginative play is still there. And, given this time in American education, it is probably the most valuable thing I can offer the teachers and students alike - the chance to find another way of learning with creativity and imagination. We are all hungry for it these days but it is more noticeable in our schools.

There is a thirst for the opportunity to teach with a freedom that teachers once had. So I get to deliver a few moments of play and poetry together. I get to laugh and bounce through the room and prod and pose countless questions. With 3rd graders, I get to invite them to think of themselves as quite extraordinary and offer them a special mission. Inside that new grouping of words rests the solution to a mystery. The words are not always attainable in the first reading and that is not a bad thing. That is an opportunity to put our detective skills to work.

In the "Poetry Detectives" virtual video game, the full impact of the premise is realized with elementary students. They are willing to buy my spiel...they put on their "official, imaginary, invisible Poetry Detective thinking caps" with flourish. They brandish their "official, imaginary, invisible Poetry Detective badges" as they claim their identities as word sleuths. Then they peer through their "official, imaginary, invisible Poetry Detective magnifying glasses" as they ponder every word; their first hint in the game being that there is never a word in a poem by accident. Each word the poet selects serves a purpose in determining what we think the poet wants us to know, feel, think, or understand from reading the poem.

In middle school, the video game construct works well but we lose the imaginary play that makes it so vibrant with the younger children. The competition takes precedence over the imaginary factors. The students still strive but in a different way. 

High school is different still and the coolness factor creates greater hurdles to leap to create and sustain engagement. But the metaphor still works.

On Sunday evenings, I start to think of the smiles, the questions, the schedule, refreshing my memory of the school map, etc. I think about the cafeteria specials that each school is noted for. I remember the names of staff members such as the Library/Media Specialists, the school secretarial staff, the front desk security folks who check my license and welcome me in. Soon it will be time to boot up the game.

Bearing Witness to the Different Styles of Teaching

I am on the last leg of my work in classrooms for this academic year, with the joy of my final two residencies being in elementary schools, predominantly with 3rd grade students. As I said in a recent post, I love 3rd graders and partially because I am really a 3rd grader in an adult body.

I have completed the first 3-day set of visits with five classes and tomorrow I start over with five new classes to initiate the process. I will shake hands with another 100+ students during the course of the day and indoctrinate them into my realm of the virtual video game, Poetry Detectives.

I also will be sharing the students with five more teachers and a number of teaching assistants. It is the teachers who show me the way to success in my work. I have learned from every teacher I have ever taught with, both those many talented educators who invite me to their rooms, and those few who demonstrate teaching in a way I will always attempt to avoid.

One thing I understand well after all these years: screaming at students as a general practice for classroom management is not a successful model. I have lost my patience occasionally while working with students and never has that been anything for which I was proud. I felt horrid, defeated, and embarrassed. I also felt very manipulated into losing control.

Recently I have been in classes with teachers who have a strong identity but a quiet presence in their rooms. In those classes, I experienced students who were attentive, listened well, and were generally very polite as well as engaged in my lessons. In those classes, I did not find myself reprimanding anyone or bordering on taking a stern tone, nor did I have to resort to any lecture on expected behaviors.

I have also been in a class or two in which the students were so used to raised voices that they no longer responded. These classes were the definitive minority but there I was. These were the classes where the students were constantly harangued for their lack of discipline, their inability to listen and respond appropriately. These were classes where the students talked constantly, even when being reprimanded for talking out of turn, they had difficulty staying in their seats, they were wired and argumentative with each other, and generally spinning through an existence that was out of touch with anything but their own impulse in the moment.

I have also been in very orderly classrooms with bright, clean surroundings, lots of positive images, and a seating layout that encourages easy movement through the room, etc. On the other hand, I have been in classes that reflect a similar chaos to that of my home office, which is shockingly crazed. Some rooms look like Charlie Brown's friend Pigpen has entered the teaching field and project a general air of confusion.

I cannot help but believe there is a direct correlation to student behavior and learning. Although every teacher I know goes through a year in which the students are supremely challenging at some point or another, in general, kids achieve when they feel safe and valued, when the environment is organized, and when the expectation that this is a place of importance is reflected. The majority of teachers I have met and worked with, and this is an astounding total, provide magnificent spaces for learning and achievement. Those who do not provide models for me of teaching styles I will do my best to avoid.

Sunday and I've Almost Caught Up on My Sleep

It feels good to be home. I have slept so much the past 2 nights. It also feels good to have some time to myself. I have been rippin' and runnin' for weeks but I have 2 weeks ahead of me to reground, clean some of the chaos of my home, finish up some pending projects, reconnect with friends, and just not be so much on the fly.

I also have the processing of all of the experiences since January started. I continue to marvel at the miracles each time I step into a learning situation. My favorite part of any learning group is the exchange, the way ideas can breed response and connection, if the participants are open and willing. Sometimes it takes a little urging to reach that point, sometimes it is just there from the get-go.

The greatest revelation is that I love planning and/or discovering new lessons and themes for residencies. The act of formulating a new curriculum is a creative endeavor. I love it. It is as enthralling as working a new poem into its full identity. Discovering the connections between an outside prompt, a particular space or subject, and the expression of it all in poetry (either poems written by others or new creations by the students) is a puzzle that will fit together if one is open and patient in the search. It is a journey and sometimes it is driven by intuition first. 

This past week was a journey of discovery for both me and my classes but we charted territory that can be translated to many different environments, age groups, and course lines. I will transcribe it all this week. Now, it is time to work on the scrawled notes in my journal that are yearning to be shaped into a new poem. Happy Sunday...think Spring.

Coming In Off the Road

It is always a strange decompression after a week in a school. The best part of this work is the mystery to solve. What will students respond to, open their minds and hearts to accept, what new concepts may be investigated, all through a multitude of lenses from which we observe and participate in the world? 

Trusting intuition is the most valuable asset for a teaching artist. If this moment presents the opportunity for a conversation that will change the angle of perception, go for it. What is there to lose. 

This week I had the privilege of working with a small group of high school teachers and partnering with my collaborator, colleague, and friend Quraysh Ali Lansana. The same week, Poetry Alive was booked for assemblies throughout the day. The irony was that Q was a touring teaching poet with Poetry Alive for several years in the early to mid 1990s. We somehow were scheduled that day with classes that were not attending the performance in the auditorium. It was a magnificent parallel.

So much of what any of us do as educators, be it the fine large group work that Poetry Alive had been providing for years or the classroom experience that others embrace, is beyond definition and often beyond any single lesson plan.

We wait for the earnest questions, the eyes that light up n the most unexpected face, the moment in which it all gels in the conversation. Sometimes the spark of righteous indignation...compassion... Sometimes it is in the flare of a new politic. Or maybe just a marvel in the potential of language coupled with thought and empathy.

There are moments of magic that fuel teachers to keep doing what they do. This week we investigated the poetry of identity and migration with 9th graders through the poems of Rhina Espaillat, Langston Hughes, Li-Young Lee, Phil Memmer, Edward Hopper's painting, Gwendolyn Brooks and her tie between 1953 and 2011, and the world just on the other side of the window, the beat and measure of our names. We were immersed in language, curiosity, history and politics, all peppered with humor. It was a dance, it was a rush.

When a teacher agrees to invite a teaching artist in the classroom, it is a risk in many ways. There is a process of developing trust that takes time to cultivate. There is a lot at stake - the success and enthusiasm of the students being the most specific and significant but certainly not the only outcome desired.

When the flow is right, it is symphonic, it is surfing, it is hang-gliding in the cosmic jetstream. I am sure all teachers feel this way. It is an honor. It is humbling, teaching is a rush. Bearing witness to true openness to learning is an outstanding thrill and marvel. I am ever grateful for my career. 

Have a good weekend, all, and happy birthday to Dr. King. May we always remember.