Day: April 19, 2013

I learned long ago that a teacher’s passion is the one thing that can ignite students to action and engagement. Left to their own devices, students appear to be more disinterested in a subject if being pumped up for it. I don’t care about blame so much as cause and the cause in this respect is a k-12 system that invests in memorization more than it does in installing basic principles of learning and moreover, a joy of learning and solving difficult problems. In short, if you give students a problem that doesn’t directly relate to what they spend the majority of their lives doing, the students don’t give a damn. Unfortunately, what they spend the majority of their time doing is distracting themselves and engaging in ‘worker bee’ behaviors. So what can be done?

This is the question that drives my course creation process.

I had the pleasure of being in the presence of poets tonight. I witnessed and assisted a poetry slam filled with young, powerful artists who wanted nothing more than to fill the air with their voices and share their strength and their message with all of us. It was incredible. While not all of the poetry rang with the tone of perfection, the effort and the courage carried them through.

15 years ago I took my turn at slam. I wasn’t the best by far but that from of expression appealed to me in the moment. It takes a special individual to step outside of the armor of seclusion to bathe in individuality under the glow of a stage light. In my time these things were often done unprepared. You were in class or went to the mic and you spit philosophy true and rhyming. The topics came from torn slips of paper folded and buried in a stylish cap. We rapped and spoke and screamed and growled and brought life and energy to the words. This is the path; the steps in which these students followed. They brought their own words–some rehearsed, some raw–that created magic on the stage.

That magic makes be proud to do what I do.