Found Poem – A pure found poem consists exclusively of outside texts: the words of the poem remain as they were found, with few additions or omissions. Decisions of form, such as where to break a line, are left to the poet.
Found(ish) Poem – all of the above, plus a sprinkling of my own thinking, because – hey, I matter… right?!
Click Here for a Recording of the Poem: https://youtu.be/9lngtSenc1Q
What is right with education?
YOU ARE!
And me… well…
there are so many things that I am not —
until I open a book.
And I read to gain empathy
empathy brings the most reward
For,
I am, because we are
and we
We don’t gotta be a hero
We gotta be a human
We don’t save
We see.
We…
Embrace discomfort and disruption;
Claim the uncertainty of that imaginative space
We…
Realize
The canon is what is present in
OUR COMMUNITY!
and
it is being written in
YA
today.
Our disenfranchised readers,
are kids who are often
disregarded &
discarded.
Our classrooms are battlegrounds for love,
for stories,
and for truth
And since I respect you and love you, I must tell you the truth:
- You cannot make a connection with a student who
you have already put facedown. - There is no apolitical classroom
because no matter the issue,
there is never just one point of view. - Social justice is a pedagogy, not a unit of study
- EVERYONE HAS A VOICE
- When we write
we must remember:
there is never garbage.
Garbage is discarded,
never thought of again.
Bad writing is fertilizer
And
barren land needs to be packed with shit
(routinely)
in order for anything to grow.
We write to keep the light lit
the light in the eyes of children
who need to hear our stories
So:
Pass me the Hi-C so I can sing in High C
And my hymn will be of the unknown
With everything in hand
Despite tired feet
remaining until only ash lingers
I have hope knowing
there is a promise
of a new
beginning.
And with my magic wand, I will improve education (and life) by:
teaching literaCY, not literaTURE
tackling bigotry, racism and homophobia with acknowledgement
by teaching sensitive literature
which is diverse, not because of its diversity
but because it is human.
So I say thank you,
I say good-bye now,
I smile knowing,
and I leave you with this:
No More, “That’s just the way it is.”
Or things will always be the same.
Reading (R)evolution 