Listening to learn the language

Continuing with my notes from a single session with Naomi Shihab Nye at the recent Dodge Poetry Festival 2008, she told of babysitting twice a week. She likes to do this, especially with young ones. Being around them, listening to their beginning talking

"will restore your essential relationship with language".

Take the opportunity where it exists.

Observe the world around you.

What is it telling you?

What are you willing to listen to?

Now, what do you hear?

"When did you stop being one?"

Also at the recent Dodge Poetry Festival 2008, Naomi Shihab Nye told an anecdote attributed to William Stafford who, when asked

"When did you become a poet?" Stafford is reported to have said,

"That is not the right question.

The right question is: When did you stop being one?"

See, what limits do you put upon yourself?

You may very well have poetic capabilities. Don't close yourself off to them.

I claim that if you can twitter you can write a haiku! The restrictions are very similar. The one GREAT benefit Twitter has over a printed haiku is the ability to link. But if you haiku (or sherku) on a web site, that advantage is nullified.

There are more limits being explored this month over at the Joyful Jubilant Learning blog. Joanna claimed "But I'm not creative!" amongst the several posts exploring learning from failure.

Stay tuned to explore more limits!

"I finally know what I am doing"

During one of the sessions at the recent Dodge Poetry Festival, Naomi Shihab Nye told the story of her second grade teacher, Mrs Lane. She was 75 years young and refusing to retire because in Mrs Lane's words

"Why should I retire when I finally know what I am doing?"

Mrs Lane organized her class curriculum around poetry. Each week Naomi and her fellow second graders had to bring in a poem or even just a section of one that they liked, for whatever reason. Each student had a section of the board on which to write their poem or piece of. During the week, as they did math, or science, and Mrs Lane could make a connection with something that was written on the board, she would do so.

On Friday, each student would go back to the board to copy down the poem or section of that they liked that was not their own. Then the board was erased and they would start all over again on Monday.

It is no wonder now that Naomi is (1) and accomplished poet and (2) a noted anthologist. Look where she came from! Thank you Mrs. Lane.

Now, Mrs Lane was teaching well before the current regulated classroom and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) came in to the picture. Naomi still believes that within the context of NCLB, poetry can be worked into the curriculum like this. She also mentioned that there is one group of teachers at a school in Texas who are attempting to do this and preparing some metrics to help prove the impact.

If you have the will, you can find the way.