Friday Poem

Environmental & Science Education
Art and Environment, Poetry
Edward Hessler

By Stilfehler (Own work)
[GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or
CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Michelle Gunderson is a first-grade teacher in Chicago. She is a fan, as are her students, of poetry and describes "poetry as the natural language of childhood" and provides some evidence.

Her students read poems.They write poems. Among poets they read include Whitman, Hughes, Dickinson, and Rosetti. I love her comment about writing a poem."Writing a poem when you are six, and experience yourself as a poet is extraordinary."

Recently she included a category of poems for writing that is important to students. The following poem is one response.

Freedom for Everyone by Arinev

Free! Free! Free!
Everyone likes being free
Outside in the grass
Inside with your toys
Freedom is on the flag
Freedom is in a leaf
Freedom
Is
Everywhere.

This poem and others as well as her thoughtful, learning-centered comments may be found at a blog entry titled "Poetry as Subversive Activity."  It is found at Living in Dialogue.

h/t Diane Ravitch's blog