MST's poetry slam

So...this is one of those entries where I more or less recall an event that happened, more as a reference for myself than for the entertainment of others, really. There is a little poetry scattered throughout, though, so feel free to skip around, check out the links, etc. if you like that kind of stuff.

Yesterday the intermediate/senior teacher candidates in my program had a guest speaker come in to talk about poetry in math/science/technology education. Being a big fan of poetry myself, I enjoyed the session and found it relaxing, but I do feel somewhat inclined to agree with others who wondered why that session was part of our program (which we paid good tuition money for), especially as I don't think the speaker really did connect the poetry well with the math/science/technology. Putting that aside, however, I always enjoy the opportunity to revel in the poetic for a bit; I don't usually think of using the little free time I have to do so, and given the workload my program is currently under (Atlas has nothing on us), it was refreshing to be pretty much forced to take this curricular time out from more pressing concerns and enjoy the flow of words for a bit.

Our speaker first read three poems to us. One of them has become one of my favourites..."Did I Miss Anything" by Canadian poet Tom Wayman. (The others were an excerpt from Dr. Seuss' On Beyond Zebra as well as Love After Love by Derek Walcott.)

Our speaker took us through a number of exercises. In the first, we were asked to think individually of 3 things we would take on a trip, and then each table was to come up with a consensus on 2 items we would take as a table. My table ended up taking underwear and music, despite one member's insistence that it would be more fun without the former. A reading followed of The Choice by Wayland Young, which describes a very peculiar trip taken by one particular man. We were then asked to decide as a table what one thing we would take if we had gone on that trip. Apparently music is very important to the people who were at my table, as we finally decided that's what we would take, claiming that it would get us through anything.

Another exercise was the "I am from..." poem, where we were given a series of prompt questions to be answered in the poem (which he tried to modify from its usual structure to apply more to us MST folks). I am not sure what I think of this exercise, at least in its MST form...you naturally more or less end up with a list, which I didn't find very poetic, although you are supposed to rework it until it sounds poetic (which I felt I was unable to do). Here is what I ended up with (that one mathematical bit isn't supposed to look as big as it does, but this is the only way the bit with the smallest font appears legibly):

I am from E=mc².
Are we ready to carry on?
I am from my emergent model of education.
I am from Mrs. Gorrie, grades 2 and 3.
I am from Tim Horton's.
I am from
...and the conservation of energy.

By the way, I double-dog-dare y'all to find the limit given in that poem, if it exists. It's question 36 in Varberg, Purcell and Rigdon (8th ed.) section 2.8, but VPR only gives the solutions to odd-numbered questions and even the solutions manual won't help you :P.

We were also asked to create a lie poem--something along the lines of, "I will not die, but I will turn into a rocketship and..." The speaker mentioned that some lie poems end up being very personal, that people sometimes cry when they read them aloud, etc. Yeah, lemme just say that though my eyes are good and dry, and I think it makes me angry rather than sad, there is no way I am sharing my lie poem here; as much as I would love to show it off ('cuz it's not half bad), no one who might actually understand it is allowed to read it. Some poetry is meant solely for the poet.

Our final exercise was to create something I have never tried before: found poetry. Each table was given a place to look for words and phrases we wanted to use and turn them into a poem. My table was to look for words and phrases on signs and bulletin boards around the building. We didn't use nearly all of the fragments we gathered, but after considerable editing we ended up with something like this, to the best of my awful memory:

Slackers wanted for joint program!
Limited engagement avec your belle-soeurs!
Remember to cover breathing passages;
There is no in and out exit.
Last time this year!

Actually, I am certain that I am missing at least one line, as I know we had the word "ethoi" in there, too. (Seriously, we found "ethoi" on a bulletin board posting...I think it had to do with the subject of a conference or speaker session. On a completely unrelated note, I just found out now that 1. "ethoi" probably is not the correct way of pluralizing ethos, and 2. "ethos" means something completely different than what I thought it did when we wrote our poem.)

That's all the poetry we did in class, though we did watch a film about the use of "notebook letters" throughout a school year by a teacher in Japan that was kinda neat (and a tear-jerker, at that). Hmm, actually, I think he might have read something to us as a closing as well, but I don't remember.

This is where the poetry ended for some of the people in my program, but I couldn't let it go at that. In the class that we were to have after lunch, each person was supposed to do a very short presentation (in whatever format we wanted--we were asked to be creative) about the model of education each of us has put together in our individual minds and think we will carry into the classes we will teach in September. I had thrown together a pretty boring Maslow's-hierarchy-type pyramid drawing, but I completely abandoned that and wrote the poem below to present instead. I was not the only person to present a poem, but of course my own poem means the most to me of all the poems that were presented :). With this I will close.

i come to your class
trembling a little
for i don't yet know what kind of class this will be.
which teacher will you be to me?
maybe you will be [name removed],
who taught me who knows what
but was always glad to see me.
maybe you will be [name removed]
who wished i were not in the line of sight
between himself
and those who knew the chain rule before the first day of class.

i come to your class
wondering what kind of ground i will tread
will you set for me a level path?
will you make sure i can crawl before you ask me to walk?
or will you beckon me from the sky to fly to you?

i come to your class
wondering what kind of face i will see
will you see the intelligence in my eyes?
will you see the green things growing through
the concepts you have presented to me
with your many words?
will your face match mine,
though we may stand in contrast
to the untrained eye?

i come to your class
i see that you love all the ideas the government wants you to teach me
and that you want me to love them, too
will you and i get there?
will you take the time to work through
all the filters between me and thee?

i am sure there is a safari of science
to explore, adventure through
and wrestle with
beyond these doors,
but i need you first to help me up the stairs
and turn the key in the door

i come to your class
a wick
and a small clay pot of oil
will you be the one to light the spark?
or will you carelessly knock me over
and ruin the lamp forever?