I’m a TwitPic Poet

I didn’t mean to write a poem today. When I fired up Twitter this morning I noticed that Leon Cych had already been out and about taking photos in the snow. Somewhat intrigued, I took a look at his photos and left a quick comment.  They would have made good material for writing a topical poem about snow with my students. When Leon fired me a tweet with a link to a poem, ‘Handwriting Exercise’,  he had written about the snow 30 years ago, the material and surrounding backstory became excellent inspiration for writing a poem. If one of my schools had been open and visiting Silverstone then I would have written with them. Shame they weren’t really!

It was then that I remembered that Leon is a ‘proper’ poet and his excellent writing reflects that but he is also a good guy so will be suitably pleasant when he reads my limited poetic response, ‘Snowscape Escape’.

What struck me about this whole process was that it was very easy with a low entry threshold. It  reminded me both of the spontaneity that seemed possible when I was a pupil at primary school and of some of the ‘off the cuff’ adventures I had with my classes as a teacher years ago. For example, I read a poem online by Laura Sheffler from UC Berkeley and next morning was opening it up to my class for their own responses, opening up authentic collaboration with the poet in the process.

Gareth’s writing offers me some insight in why it was such a buzz for me as a teacher using technology to create today.

It’s grasping the nostalgia of how learning takes place: constructionism, experimentation, trial and error etc, and relating a technology to these forces that makes it powerful and relevant.

What I’ve experienced today is the nostalgia for how some of my my most memorable  learning took place in the past and how technology can make it relevant as a means for learning in the future.  I’ve always been a TwitPic poet baby – you better believe it!

Thanks Gareth

I’ve just picked this up from Gareth, who has always been a delight to work with. Thank you so much for your encouragement and I look forward to seeing you at Silverstone soon. I knew there was a poet somewhere inside that ICT guru! I dare you to perform it;-)

His blog remains a must-read!

What do consultants REALLY make?

Terry asks whether a passionate poet like Taylor Mali performing ‘What Teachers Make’ can

… make a difference, to anyone or anything? I’m inclined to think not, especially for a UK audience, where we tend to understate everything.

That’s just the point. Here in the UK we understate everything including the excellence in our classrooms and schools. That is not something of which we should be proud or a status quo that we should want to maintain. A bloody window into a bit more grassroots passion might just be the transformative antidote to the insipid reputation of teaching among the general population as a whole.

This is not a rant about Terry -far from it – he is one of the good guys

The post just resonates with me because I have spent three years making extensive use of the Taylor Mali poem to try and get teachers to realise how crucial they are to the whole process of transforming education in 21st century.

Mali has made a difference to 160 people so far, inspiring them to teach. I wonder how many of the educational advice or consultancy community can boast that kind of influence? My personal answer to that question is why I am returning to teaching – a place where I feel I really can make a difference.

French Poetry

Acceleration a fond

fonce a toute allure!

Puissance infinie.

Raffa on YouTube…

Peter Rafferty of Green Park School fame sent me a YouTube link to Dave Kirby’s poem ‘A Tale of Two Kensingtons’ that he wanted to include on his class blog. Even as an Everton supporter, I recognise that this is a great resource for getting boys interested in poetry, particularly if you are teaching on Merseyside.

The problem is that if you click through to the video on YouTube, you are forced to read comments that are profane and unsuitable for his Year 1 audience.

At the top of KS2 (10/11 year-olds) I would happily grasp the nettle and discuss the appropriateness of the commenting but not at Year 1. It’s a shame that the software doesn’t allow the link back to YouTube to be disabled while still allowing the video’s level of google juice to increase. Then everyone would be a winner.

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What teachers make…

Taylor Mali is one of my creative heroes and his poem ‘What teachers make‘ has served me well at speaking engagements over the last few years. However, it was time to move on and perform some other stuff. What better way to bow out than with a performance (if you can call it that) at the top of the Valluga, at 2,809 m the highest point in the Arlberg mountains in Austria. It was so quiet up there that I felt I just couldn’t rant loudly so just let the performance slip away peacefully.

I always enjoyed a love-hate relationship with the performance of that poem. I love the poem itself but hate how it caused me to ‘corpse‘ on a regular basis. The only time I really ‘nailed’ it to my own satisfaction was at the Communicate.06 Conference last year. The last time I performed it though, I couldn’t even get out of the first lines and had to bail out completely. It was a sign! So – farewell my friend and on to poems new!

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