Monday, November 24, 2008
Nicely Put
I was just in Nice for Professional Development and the major highlight of the whole time was meeting this guy: Taylor Mali. I went to a Poetry Recitation session that he held on the first day and then attended a 2 hour workshop he led on the second. It was fantastic and inspiring.
While I love being a teacher, I often find that so many teachers lack passion for what they do, so many are in the profession "by accident", so many don't want to make a lasting difference in kids' lives. And lastly, it may be cruel but it's somewhat true: so many of us are just so lame! Yes, I said it. But Alas! Taylor Mali was incredible and reignited my fire for my job. He also taught me how to get my students into poetry and words. He also inspired me to write and work on being more "poetic".
This was one of the poems he recited.
Also, I bought his book and he signed it! He asked my name and when I told him he replied: "All through high school my one goal in life was to get into a good college and get a girlfriend named Jessica." I thought that was neat.
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2 comments:
I just taught a unit on Oratory and Rhetoric and I used this exact poem from YouTube to illustrate "speaking with conviction". I hope you had a chance to check out some of his other poems... especially his talk on "What Teachers Make". I am quite jealous that you met him. This poem also caused me to reflect on the way I speak, actually.
I hear you! And yes, "What Teachers Make" was highly motivating. It's also on YouTube. One of the sessions I attended was him performing his poetry,including "What Teachers Make" and a few others. We laughed, we cried, we were inspired! It was like, totally, great?
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