From Learning
From learning comes
this great fountain of knowledge
I’ve gained along the way
at Wichita State and East High with
rooms filled with knowledge.
From teachers, from students,
from hard work I put in every day,
comes the joy of studying, exploring
knowledge with students, even when it’s hard,
comes the feeling of purpose, feelings we devour.
O, to internalize our journey,
to carry our experiences, to know
not only the books, but the writing,
not only our friends, but each teacher, to hold
our brains in our hands, admire it, then bite into
another fount of knowledge.
There are hours we learn
as if failure is nothing
to any of us; from grade
to grade to grade, from work to work,
from learning to learning to
outstanding learning, to amazing outstanding learning.
My Mentor Teacher is involved with a competition called Poetry Out Loud. One of our 4th hour students won the in-school competition and then went on to win the regional competition. His poems were very powerful and every time I heard him perform I was almost transformed to another place. For the state competition he had to memorize a third poem, and he ended up choosing “From Blossoms” by Li-Young Lee. The poem is about remembering the good days of summer and letting that joy live within you. I wanted to recreate/model this poem with my student teaching experience in mind.
Lee, Li-Young. “From Blossoms.” Poetry Out Loud, http://www.poetryoutloud.org/
poems-and-performance/poems/detail/43012.
Accessed on 4 Mar. 2018.
I was really moved by this poem, and my class also participated in the POL competition -- how amazing it is that your student won regionals! I think it would have been amazing to have witnessed such a performance and to be so moved by it. Your poem itself was profound -- especially the line "to hold our brains in our hands, admire it, then bite into another fount of knowledge". I think as educators we all strive for that moment in our students where all the pieces fall into place and we feel that small victory of success and then we buckle down and charge onto the next challenge. Well done, and thank you for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful. I agree with Chelsea -- those same lines stood out to me, and I went back to re-read and savor them. Thank you, Kimberly.
ReplyDelete