The Power of the Pen
Poetry is often thought of as fanciful and supplementary to other areas of education. This sub-genre of your English credit is underutilized and overlooked, despite what it can teach us. Educators instead focus upon grammar, novels, and essays. Although those things are important, poetry can do just as much. Just a few lines in a poem can evoke just as much conversation and critical thinking as a 200 page novel. Poetry introduces us to philosophies of life, critical thinking and new ways of expressing ourselves. It also conveys emotions, experiences, and things we have difficulty putting into words. These are thing that we, not just as students in the academic world but as human beings, need to connect to.
Within today’s education system, particularly in high school education, there is a purveying sense of single-minded emphasis on facts. A common practice among students is to memorize
the material for the test. This is harmful, not only for the student in the long run, but for the future of our education system. These same students that are memorizing the material are becoming your next generation of teachers. It is a sad reality that we will soon face if this is not addressed.
There has become a disconnect between intellect and emotion. A rift that each year that moves that moves these two ideas farther and farther apart. Rather than separate these two
ideas we should promote coexistence of them. English classes should be the leaders in uniting emotion and intellect, instead English departments have formulized how to write a good paper or infer what a poem is about. All you need
to see this is to open your English textbook to see what characteristics a memoir or any other student papers must
have.
Robert Frost once said, “Poetry is the emotion of having a thought." Emotion and thought, that should be the goal of education. It is through the continual use of poetry, plays, and fiction that we become familiar with this type of thinking. Consistent exposure to artists such as Shakespeare, Frost, Voltaire, Hemingway, and Whitman will engage both the heart and the mind.
The method high school educators are teaching their students is increasingly becoming the Gradgrind method. Gradgrind is a fictional character from one of Charles Dickens' novels. Gradgrind was a teacher that emphasized that only facts and practical things mattered, The factual way of thinking teachs students formulas or processes, not thinking skills. It fails to prepare students for a University education and later on, life.
Poetry engages the mind, heart, and imagination. Imagination can create wonderful innovations and take you to interesting places. It awakens inside of each of us wonder and compassion. Inside of a poem is many things and many ways to approach it. To understand a poem you must use all of these. Particularly heart and imagination. This is because poetry often involves feelings that are difficult to put into words.
It is our hope at Literature in Education that curriculums will begin to be organized with a holistic approach in mind.
Within today’s education system, particularly in high school education, there is a purveying sense of single-minded emphasis on facts. A common practice among students is to memorize
the material for the test. This is harmful, not only for the student in the long run, but for the future of our education system. These same students that are memorizing the material are becoming your next generation of teachers. It is a sad reality that we will soon face if this is not addressed.
There has become a disconnect between intellect and emotion. A rift that each year that moves that moves these two ideas farther and farther apart. Rather than separate these two
ideas we should promote coexistence of them. English classes should be the leaders in uniting emotion and intellect, instead English departments have formulized how to write a good paper or infer what a poem is about. All you need
to see this is to open your English textbook to see what characteristics a memoir or any other student papers must
have.
Robert Frost once said, “Poetry is the emotion of having a thought." Emotion and thought, that should be the goal of education. It is through the continual use of poetry, plays, and fiction that we become familiar with this type of thinking. Consistent exposure to artists such as Shakespeare, Frost, Voltaire, Hemingway, and Whitman will engage both the heart and the mind.
The method high school educators are teaching their students is increasingly becoming the Gradgrind method. Gradgrind is a fictional character from one of Charles Dickens' novels. Gradgrind was a teacher that emphasized that only facts and practical things mattered, The factual way of thinking teachs students formulas or processes, not thinking skills. It fails to prepare students for a University education and later on, life.
Poetry engages the mind, heart, and imagination. Imagination can create wonderful innovations and take you to interesting places. It awakens inside of each of us wonder and compassion. Inside of a poem is many things and many ways to approach it. To understand a poem you must use all of these. Particularly heart and imagination. This is because poetry often involves feelings that are difficult to put into words.
It is our hope at Literature in Education that curriculums will begin to be organized with a holistic approach in mind.