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Cassie Neumann: neumannc@kent.edu
One of the first schools we visited as part of our observations and practice lessons for David Hassler's Teaching Poetry in the Schools course (Spring 07) was at an elementary school. I was helping a young student find the words she needed to express herself through poetry when the unthinkable happened- the kid next to us threw up. Bright pink vomit. I panicked, and told David afterwards that I DID NOT want to teach in an elementary school classroom.
My experiences got much better after that. I taught poetry to students at Maplewood Career Center (11th grade) and Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts (7th grade). Not only did none of my students vomit, but they also suprised me with some of their insights and imagery. Going into my schools to teach poetry became the highlight of my weeks. It became clear to me during that spring semester that I loved teaching, and I was sure this was the right career for me.
As an English education major, I was especially lucky to land a student teaching position in the skidZone! at Miller South, which came directly as a result from my Teaching Poetry experiences. And I got to go through Wick a second time as the (in-training) cooperating teacher when visiting artists came in to work with my students. I admit I looked forward to these days with a kind of guilty pleasure- not only did I get the unique opportunity to write poetry, sing songs, and create stick rhythm dances along with my students, but I also got a break from lesson planning on these days. :-)
Today I am nearing the end of my first year of teaching. I teach high school theatre and mass media courses, and I love every minute of it. Even though I don't teach poetry (though I would love to at some point), I find myself sneaking writing into a lot of my lesson plans. And though I've learned countless pedagogical skills for planning standards-based lessons, I still often find that the simple teaching model we used in David's class is one of the best ways to reach students: Share. Discuss. Create.
I am grateful to have had a class like Teaching Poetry in the Schools. I will always look back on that class as my first teaching experience, at those classrooms as the first place for me to test my unsteady teaching wings. Even in a short amount of time, I've come a long way from being the skiddish college student, grossed out by pink elementary student vomit. Although now that I write this, I'm betting I'll have a high school kid get sick in class this week, and I'll probably still flip out.
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