Wallow in the delight of Poetry Friday today at Anastasia's 6-Traits...
I've decided that if the point of our public charter school proposal is a school that is, well, FUN, that the application should be too: full of concrete examples of what children and adults will actually be doing in our classrooms, and written using serious, appropriate educational lingo punctuated by POEMS. (We'll see what our consultant says about this wisdom of this decision.)
So I'm on the lookout for short poems that express our philosophy about education and public schooling in the era of global citizenship (all suggestions welcome). I've chosen poems so far by Ruth Krauss, Octavio Paz and Eve Merriam; last night I discovered this beauty by Robert Frost. I'm beginning to think that my early poetry education was sorely lacking; I keep "discovering" famous poems by famous poets that everyone else seems to know already. But even if I'd read this in high school, I'd want to be revisiting it now, approaching but well in advance of 50.
What Fifty Said
When I was young my teachers were the old.
I gave up fire for form till I was cold.
I suffered like a metal being cast.
I went to school to age to learn the past.
Now I am old my teachers are the young.
What can't be molded must be cracked and sprung.
I strain at lessons fit to start a suture.
I go to school to youth to learn the future.
~ Robert Frost
I wonder what beauties I can scare up for the Finance & Facility section of the application?
Great Frost poem.
ReplyDeleteHow about Howard Nemerov's "Money" for the finance crowd? :)
Lovely Frost poem! I know what you mean about famous poems by famous people. I don't know most of them:>( And I was an English major. Double :>( Actually, I've probably read most of them but can't remember. Oh well. It gives us the joy of constant (re) discovery!
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your efforts!