Homework #46, "Teaching With Fire"

"Teaching With Fire" is a book of poems that have been submitted by teachers. "Through electronic mail, networks, and word of mouth, we spread the word that we were seeking poems that mattered to teachers". So it is a book compiled of poems that matter to teachers. The book is separated into eight sections, and each section has a different idea. Or something. Everyone who submitted a poem has a page about the first time they came across the poem, or how they feel about the poem, or both. Some of the pages also say where in their classroom they keep the poem, and how it has motivated them to teach. Some of the sections in this book include why teachers were inspired to teach, the struggles they faced while teaching, and how teachers make a change in the world.

One of my favorite poems in this book is Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost:

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

This poem makes me think of how some things that are good can't last forever. Like a tree that is in bloom with beautiful flowers now might not be here when the seasons change, but that it will be back again.

My topic was how can poetry be incorporated into school/ how do teachers use poetry. "Teaching With Fire" is a whole book on how poetry has inspired and influenced teachers. To teach with fire is to go outside the box (or in this case book), and to teach differently. One teacher in the book read the poem Fueled by Marcie Hans to her students, and had them go out on an outing to interact with nature. She says in the page before the poem "We discussed the poem, memorized it, and vowed to celebrate whatever 'springtime miracles' we found". This is an example of teaching differently, and having students do an activity based around a poem. This is also similar to the poet Taylor Mali, who I spoke about in this post. While the teachers that haver submitted poems picked poems that were not by themselves, Taylor Mali happens to be a teacher as well as a poet. He writes poems about his students, and how he teaches.

Another idea from the poem From Preface to Leaves of Grass by Walt Witman is (it's the first visible paragraph):
"Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul and your very flesh shall be a great poem" this is similar to the saying "Question Authority". To actually process information that is given to you and to have your own opinion on things. This can also be used for teachers who do their own thing while they're teaching. There is a way to teach like the traditional teacher, yet people (students in this case) get bored of things that are always the same. The films that we watched in class where the teacher comes in, and the students are either bored, and or chaotic and then the teachers find ways to get the kids' attention.. is a good example of teachers doing their own thing. What I'm trying to say is that I wanted to see how poetry can be brought into a classroom and used to teach students, and "Teaching With Fire" is a good example of how teachers have been influenced by poetry.