|
Poet Roundtable
5.
AOTW: Do you feel our schools do an adequate job of exposing children to poetry? How would you teach kids to love poetry?
Carol Muske-Dukes: No, not really. I think most teachers are intimidated by poetry and don't know how to teach it. Their fear and misunderstanding make poetry seem threatening and remote. This summer I'm participating in an "institute" that Robert Pinsky developed, as part of the Favorite Poem Project --- poets actually teach teachers how to present poetry. Can't wait!
How would you teach kids to love poetry? The way you get anyone to love poetry --- find a poem that touches that spirit. Let them memorize it, talk about it, try to re-create it. Or just READ it.
Robin Robertson: Poetry is taught extremely badly in most schools. A few years ago I was living in upstate New York and a high school teacher asked my advice about teaching Frost's "The Road Not Taken." I asked what the problem was, and she said she didn't understand it. When I got her to read it aloud I found out why: she end-stopped every printed line, as if each were a discreet sentence.
Mark Ford: I don't know about American schools. Over here I judge a poetry competition at a primary school each year --- the children select, learn and perform poems. It's on a voluntary basis, but over the years it has become more and more popular with the kids, who are between 6 and 10, and even quite disaffected ones now seem to be enjoying reciting a bit of Spike Milligan or Linton Kwesi Johnson. Teaching is a great deal about personality --- a good teacher can make kids interested in anything.
Daniel Mark Epstein: Teach kids to love poetry by reading to them the poems that you love.
|
