At first glance, a poem may be seen as a melodramatic, narcissistic, disjointed, pretentious piece that is just plain boring to study. Yet, the most amazing thing occurs when you start to analyze it. Each poem actually becomes a life force to be reckoned with! Last week I learned that Poetry really is the perfect tool to learn history, language, ethics, logos, ethos, perspective, humanity and creativity. As an educator their is no better gift than to pass on this information to students, so I find poetry to be an indispensable tool to use as educators. Here's why:.
Students learn about history through the time it is written, what current events were going on during the time and the authors history.
Students learn about the importance of language by word choice, order of words, repetition, rhymes and combination of words.
Students learn the ethical values of the time based on what is written, the logic that is being used to form the poem, in addition the logic that was thought during the creation of the poem: essentially how one thinks, and the emotion that can be expressed in passion, message through content and form.
Students learn how to examine a poem from different perspectives. Can it be misunderstood? Is it bias or insulting? Does it focus form the perspective of many or few. And can we as students still read it without judgment or resistance?
Students learn poetry teaches humanity. That we are all human and share similar emotions, experiences and thoughts that we can relate to and bond us.
Finally, students can learn to be creative in their own expression. Free to create without judgment. Free to express deep emotion, without fear.
This to me is the greatest gift of all, and this is why we need to keep teaching poetry in school.
No comments:
Post a Comment