If I wore hats, I would take them all off to Kenneth Koch for his inspiring writing prompts for teaching children poetry that allow them to express their hidden anxieties and desires. And when the normal school constraints on behavior are lifted, poetry can help children find themselves.
I’ve recently been teaching fourth and fifth grade classes at an elementary school in an area of San Francisco that has the most confusing topography, with circular streets that don’t make any sense. When I manage to find the school, hot and bothered most weeks because, between trying to rely on GPS that doesn’t know where I am and my lack of any sense or direction, I arrive just in the nick of time. But I’m going to keep finding my way there as long as I can, even to the classrooms that are pretty much out of control. There, the children are full of beans, unruly half the time as they flirt outrageously with each other, and sometimes make me laugh so much with their antics that they manage to completely derail whatever lesson I’ve planned for them.
One of the groups I’ve been working with is the polar opposite. They volunteer in their lunch break to be in a poetry club set up by the school librarian, a woman who radiates warmth and a profound love of books that sets the perfect environment for teaching poetry. The poetry club is made up of seven girls who, the librarian told me, take advantage of the poetry club she set up to give them a chance to escape the noise and behavior of the playground.
In one session, as I often do with all elementary school children, I had the children read a poem from the “I Wish” section of Koch’s “Wishes, Lies and Dreams”. I then instructed them to write their own poems on what they wished for. We only have twenty to twenty-five minutes together as the children need to have enough time to eat their lunches and no food is allowed in the library. This means no time for the usual discussion period that I include in longer class periods.
One round-faced fourth-grader, no more than ten years old, whom I’ll call Stella, wandered around the library after the others had started writing their poems, looking at the display copies of books scattered here and there on the top of the low bookcases. She had an absorbed expression on her face as she lifted one, rearranged it on the shelf, and then put it back in its original display, completely focused on her task.
When I was ten and in a public library on a lonely, solitary afternoon, I knelt on the floor and, thinking I was performing a useful public service, pushed books into the back edge of shelves to make them look neater. The librarian caught me and whisper-yelled at me, what did I think I was doing, and as I flushed in humiliation, pushed me aside to pull them all out again. I stood back and didn’t say anything to Stella, and finally she sat down and began to write.
It was time for the students to read out their poems and I asked for volunteers. Stella was first to put up her hand. She began with wanting to be legendary and followed that with I wish I wasn’t me. She then wrote that she wished to be smart and not so loving. Her next line was I wish I was loved. She ended her poem:
I wish I don’t have to hide back the insecurity that I own.
I wish I weren’t in the shadows that hide back my truth
I wish people would know me and love me for who I am.
I wish I didn’t hide myself every day.
I wish I didn’t say things that aren’t too nice.
But hiding my self doesn’t help.
I’ve recently been teaching fourth and fifth grade classes at an elementary school in an area of San Francisco that has the most confusing topography, with circular streets that don’t make any sense. When I manage to find the school, hot and bothered most weeks because, between trying to rely on GPS that doesn’t know where I am and my lack of any sense or direction, I arrive just in the nick of time. But I’m going to keep finding my way there as long as I can, even to the classrooms that are pretty much out of control. There, the children are full of beans, unruly half the time as they flirt outrageously with each other, and sometimes make me laugh so much with their antics that they manage to completely derail whatever lesson I’ve planned for them.
One of the groups I’ve been working with is the polar opposite. They volunteer in their lunch break to be in a poetry club set up by the school librarian, a woman who radiates warmth and a profound love of books that sets the perfect environment for teaching poetry. The poetry club is made up of seven girls who, the librarian told me, take advantage of the poetry club she set up to give them a chance to escape the noise and behavior of the playground.
In one session, as I often do with all elementary school children, I had the children read a poem from the “I Wish” section of Koch’s “Wishes, Lies and Dreams”. I then instructed them to write their own poems on what they wished for. We only have twenty to twenty-five minutes together as the children need to have enough time to eat their lunches and no food is allowed in the library. This means no time for the usual discussion period that I include in longer class periods.
One round-faced fourth-grader, no more than ten years old, whom I’ll call Stella, wandered around the library after the others had started writing their poems, looking at the display copies of books scattered here and there on the top of the low bookcases. She had an absorbed expression on her face as she lifted one, rearranged it on the shelf, and then put it back in its original display, completely focused on her task.
When I was ten and in a public library on a lonely, solitary afternoon, I knelt on the floor and, thinking I was performing a useful public service, pushed books into the back edge of shelves to make them look neater. The librarian caught me and whisper-yelled at me, what did I think I was doing, and as I flushed in humiliation, pushed me aside to pull them all out again. I stood back and didn’t say anything to Stella, and finally she sat down and began to write.
It was time for the students to read out their poems and I asked for volunteers. Stella was first to put up her hand. She began with wanting to be legendary and followed that with I wish I wasn’t me. She then wrote that she wished to be smart and not so loving. Her next line was I wish I was loved. She ended her poem:
I wish I don’t have to hide back the insecurity that I own.
I wish I weren’t in the shadows that hide back my truth
I wish people would know me and love me for who I am.
I wish I didn’t hide myself every day.
I wish I didn’t say things that aren’t too nice.
But hiding my self doesn’t help.