Category Archives: Poetry

Dazed, Amazed, and Determined

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Every teacher probably has their own unique reason for getting into education. Somewhere our motives our probably interconnected in some sort of inspirational lattice, but I am not here to conjecture on why you teach. I want to share a story that elucidates why I got into the business.

Every once in a while, a student does something, or says something that shows the teacher that the hours spent wondering if anything he/she said made any difference in the student’s life. We speak so much about learning and where to find it, and what it looks like, and how to assess it that we have lost touch with any sense of what it means to the life of the children we are dealing with everyday. So consumed are we with skills and content and curriculum that we have forgotten that learning is a long slow process with results we may never see. We plant seeds and tend them the best we can a few hours a day, a few years and then hope that sometime in the future they will bear fruit.

I am here to say that one of my young seedlings from last year just blossomed. James was always mature beyond his age. I always had a hard time understanding how his brain works the way it does, seeing he just finished the seventh grade. Understanding, kind, and deliberate with his learning, he was a pleasure to work with.

In class this past year we struggled with certain themes regardless what we were official meant to be studying.

  • We looked at the environment and the relationship humans have with it.
  • We looked at class and how it dictates our relationships.
  • We looked at how we can work to make the world a better place.

You tell me; how can you assess to see if a 7th grader has learned anything about these insurmountable ideas? Is there a standardized test that can show growth in the field of developing an environmentalist consciousness? Is there a I can give to see if my students are learning that their lives are tightly interconnected with the lives of people spread across the planet? Can we assess the understanding that the way we view the most mundane aspects of our lives is what poetry was meant to do?

Well, today I got a clue. James wrote his first blog post upon returning to his homeland, Nigeria. The fact that he has chosen to carry on with his school blog makes me so proud. It demonstrates that he understands that writing is more than an exercise made monotonous in school. He understands that when faced with emotions that may appear difficult or euphoric it is natural and important to write.

But what did he write, you may ask? The post was not simply a teenager writing about the minutia of his day. You can read the entire post here, and I encourage you to leave him comments. I was also very pleased that he used a CC image and cited it correctly.  Without further ado I will share my favorite lines:

I am sitting at the table with the soft music of nature- the wind, blowing in through the windows. I wish I can share in detail how much nature is showing her wonders. From the rustling of the trees up above to the cry of the insects down below. From the whistling of the wandering wind up above, to the hypnotic voice of the woman as she chants while she works, down below. These things cannot just be told, to be understood. They need to be felt to appreciate the remarkable wonders nature as got.

I feel sad and dazed of how much life has changed. Looking back to where I came from and then looking right now to where life’s journey has brought me, there are definitely some differences. I have been here for just a short while and already, I can see the different social classes and their style of living.

Trying to answer that, I started changing my perspective of where I am. Then I started to see the hidden beauties it has. Every time I look outside the car’s window, there are stories all around, stories just around the corner. Stories shown by the way people live, the way people bustle about the streets with emotions that can’t be explained in a thousand words. Stories waiting to be told.

I nearly cried pasting these passages above. Here is a young man who is thinking critically, asking important questions, using a fluid and simple prose to help guide him through his emotions. He sees the poetry in his life and understands it is wrapped in politics and art.

Thank you James. Thank you for listening. Please stay in touch we have important work to do in the years to come…

Nature of War

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In year nine history this unit, we have been looking at 20th century warfare and conflict. Rather than focus on people, places, or dates, I have chosen to first examine the very nature of warfare. The standards we have been working on for this unit are as follows:

  • Select relevant information from a source to group and sequence
  • Select and combine information from sources on the basis of content

Firstly, I asked the students to find ten images of twentieth-century warfare. I tried to have them find Creative Common images, but finding historical Creative Common images proved difficult, so we decided that we would use any images we could find. Working in groups, the students sorted the images, devising their own criteria for sorting.

We lead a class discussion to clarify the criteria the different groups used in sorting. Students, in groups, then sorted against specific criteria, looking at common threads, eg naval warfare, civilian experiences. They came up with a variety of categories, then narrowed them down to about ten:

  • Urban
  • Naval
  • Air
  • Bombs
  • Civilian
  • Etc…

As a class, we discussed a ‘concept map’, eg ’cause’, ‘nature’, ‘impact’, ‘effect’ of war. We then used a selection of the images from the sorting activity as a basis for an overview of the “Nature” of warfare. Each student picked one photograph from one of the categories and free wrote a piece of sensory writing, which was then crafted into a poem.

Because Windows Movie Makers does not allow multi-track narration, we had to use Audacity to record a three-track soundtrack including sound effects found online, music, and narration. Most students had little to no experience with the sound recording software, but were quickly able to align their audio tracks with the WMM file. This process would have been much more simple on Mac, but it was a good experience for the kids finding ways to use a variety of software.

After our spring break we will begin to look at the Causes and Impacts of the major 20th century conflicts. Moving on to these standards:

  • Identify similar factors leading to the outbreak of major world conflicts
  • Describe and make links between relevant reasons for, and results of, events and changes

I hope our video work will help students achieve the following standards:

  • Explain the reasons why attitudes to events differ
  • Use knowledge and understanding to analyse and interpret information
  • Describe characteristic features of twentieth-century conflicts
  • Research and summarise information for use in group discussion

As the projects are completed, I will post them on our wiki for review and comments. In the meantime, here is the first one:

Any comments, suggestions, or further ideas would be appreciated.