The Teacher Project

To Build a Teacher cont…

I knew that I would come back to this topic, although frankly, this whole blog could be titled such. 

Building a teacher, as with building anything, requires input of materials, processing, refining, finishing….refinishing….more input of materials and labor….it is a never ending process.  Frankly, I feel that the day one has stopped learning in their field, I think this is the day to move on and try something different.

Let me share a poem I wrote in first year English to build a little more on this concept…In keeping with the theme, the poem is titled To Build a Poet.

To Build a Poet

Waiting  -  anticipating

Absent of rhyme, not a single verse

A blank canvas alone – no stanzas to rehearse

                        Plagued by the doggerels,   

                                           Lodged in a rut,

Bound by the rules of rhyme

Break . . . rest;

Learn from the best,

Do not, their dialect and idiom jest!

Analyze … critique,

Understand the technique!

What of their ways your curiosity pique?

What makes some good, while others bad?

How does one conjure the emotion of sad?

Study their verse, their best and their worst,

Understand the mechanics of the sane and the mad.

Read from the contemporary, apprentice with the classics.

Travel north with Service, south with Taylor, it’s really quite fantastic.

Like any other craftsman, poets grow through experience and practice.

And built upon a foundation of influence; they’re woven like lattice.

Drops of rhyme, a dash reason, stir the pot, and add the season.

Masters are built-not of their own-but teased by influences of the seasoned.

Drink with Shakespeare, dine with Milton; of poets, they are The Hilton.

With their experience, form a union; and with their legacy – communion

Into the pot … melt it down,

All of their wisdom

…Drink it up.

…Drown.

And when on the other side thou dost emerge

And with rhyme and quill you have the urge

Paint the canvas-fashion a verse

And never again the greats will you curse.

             Gregory Stickney   March 23, 2005

Whether or not you are a fan of poetry, (whether or not you would consider this poetry), it takes little effort to read this as ‘To Build a Teacher’.  Consider each line…ie. ‘What makes some good while other bad?’, or ‘Read from the contemporary, apprentice with the classics’…we have asked all of the same questions in this year of our education.  The challenge now is to ‘for a union with their experience’, and ‘communion with their legacy’…as student teachers it is time to move from a position of force fed education to one of apprenticeship.

So ‘when on the other side thou dost emerge’, we’ll likely look back at the headaches of education… and hopefully ‘never again, the (profs) shall we curse’.

Have a great day…and HEY!…allow yourself to be ‘teased by the influences of the seasoned’.

Gregory