Entering the Student’s World: Writing Poetry for Teacher-student Understanding
Margaret Issitt, UK
Margaret Issitt is a lifetime educator with experience in a range of special needs roles in Leicestershire. Now retired she plays and teaches the piano and also teaches individual children who have a wide range of learning difficulties. Margaret also enjoys writing books – Don’t eat anything pink! (2014), Pick ‘n’ Mix (2015) and a forthcoming book Keep Eating the Carrots!
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Abstract
Introduction
Hearing students’ words as poetry
I’m cool
The mask
The government shouldn’t put me in there
Ring up the parents
The transformative potential of poetic engagement
Conclusion
This article describes an educational practice that:
- Builds teacher confidence in working with students labelled with Special Educational Needs
- Nurtures the classroom as a rich learning and teaching environment
- Reveals how transformative listening can enrich the lives of teachers and students
- Values and uses poetry as an expression of human life.
To gain a deeper understanding of the inner life of students, especially those with, or at least labelled with, special educational needs (SEN), I have pursued two paths. The first, a personal and practical journey, traces my experience recognising the poetic power of students’ own words as exhibited in the four poems below, ‘found’ in student voices. The second path, which took me on a more intellectual journey, accounts and argues for the transformative potential of the poetic engagement and leads to my conclusions.
Using poetry in the way I suggest transforms both teacher and student in terms of their understanding of themselves and each other. The richer, more honest and more genuine mutual understanding that results, enables the teacher to ‘get alongside’ students and offers a window to their world. It provides a platform for reassurance, recognition and guidance and enables the teacher to facilitate and support the student. A teacher needs to understand an SEN student at a deep level in order to develop a really profitable educational relationship. This article suggests a way the teacher can attain that relationship by recognising the poetic power of student’s words, and through them discover how SEN students position themselves in relation to everyday life. It considers the creative act of hearing the voice of the students as poetry. Hearing student voices as ‘found’ poetry creates a rich intellectual space and offers a new role for teacher and student to work together, honouring the words which are exchanged between them and giving them new status as poems.
The original design of my study was to interview nine SEN students with the intent of building some sort of data bank which would enable me to answer the question of whether SEN students felt school/college had helped or hindered them. I am not sure if it was simply serendipity or the act of transposing the recordings that lead me to hear the students’ words as poetry. Labelled as they were with ‘SEN’, each of the students I interviewed had had some form of difficulty in their literary life at school and consequently I received nine experiences of difficulty – nine heartfelt expressions of life and nine invitations to personal worlds.
The influence of the SEN label on children is not systematically pursued in this article, and there are plenty of studies elsewhere. But it is clear that a label can colour the way a person is seen, is treated and comes to see themselves. Hearing student words as poetry brought me closer to how these students experienced that label and all the life experiences that go with it. I was allowed to glimpse spaces that, had I not written the poems, I would never have seen, or appreciated. In the process I started to challenge my own views; I was ‘interrogating my own assumptions.’(Whitehead and McNiff. 2006, p.25). The students offered me the opportunity to look deeper into their lives and feel what it meant to them - how they saw obstacles that worried them and prevented them from working in the way the school required. Many of these difficulties were not visible or obvious to other teaching professionals and existed in an area not measurable by any form of testing.
All my interviews with the students were designed specifically to lower anxiety, encourage talking and build confidence. I had three strategies. The first was to offer the student artefacts that I as a teacher use and with which they might be familiar and to use these as a starting point for conversation: for example a wooden alphabet, textured letters or a speaking pen - an electronic device used frequently for teaching reading. The second was a discussion about the rights of a child – and consequently their rights; and the third involved showing photographs of contemporary celebrities and asking whether there were any significant individuals who had made a difference to the student’s literary skills. Full details of my research procedure can be found at Issitt M. 2007
My questions suggested to the student that their answers would be valued, and that I as teacher and they as student were engaged in a joint enterprise. Without intent I had generated the ground and the space from which poetry could be created and ‘found’. I had given the students the opportunity to express themselves and they had offered me what amounted to a rich vein of sentiments and concerns. I had offered the chance to express views on a subject about which the SEN student knew more than anyone else. My invitation was personal and honest and they realised I was interested. They accepted my invitation.
Each student had different things to say about what it is like to have a SEN label and together the poems reveal a range of sentiments experienced in their life in school. I hope you find them as instructive as I have. I don’t extensively analyse them in my discussion below – I leave them to you for you to take and make your own interpretations.
This SEN student sat on one side of a table in the college library and I sat opposite for 15 minutes recording our conversation. Later I spent an hour transposing it. As I approached the interview I had been nervous that the student might find my questions challenging, or have difficulty articulating responses. It turned out that I was entirely wrong. I realised the strength, honesty, clarity and, to some extent, beauty of what was expressed. It was at the moment I transcribed the words that they became recognisable as ‘found’ poetry. In recognising that, I became part of his experience and he became part of mine.
‘I’m cool’
I like a test I do.
I think it tests your mind.
I’ve got Special Needs you know.
I go to school and they’re really kind.
I don’t say ‘I can’t.’ I say ‘I’ll try.’
And now you’ll want to know just why
I’m so cool?
If I want to go out and do stuff I can.
I’m Special Needs you know.
But I don’t let that get in my way.
When I visited a guy who was ill
in the hospital one day
(I’d never been there before)
I saw this boy in a wheelchair.
My mate said, “Look at him. He can’t talk.
He can’t walk and what’s more
he’s sick. He just sits there.
He can’t go out and do things and stuff.
It just doesn’t seem fair.’
And I was thinking:
You’ve not got it that bad.
What he’s got is really sad.
I saw all these people worse than me.
Positive you have to be
if you are challenged mentally.
If you say ‘It’s too hard for me’
you are disordered, actually.
I like a test I do.
I think it tests your mind.
It was the story of my life.
But it was only Special Needs I’d got.
So when people join the class I’m in
in wheelchairs or who can’t think very well,
and you ask what would I do?
I’d be nice to them that’s what,
‘cos really I haven’t got it that bad.
I’m cool. They’re really sad.
This student used an incredibly acute perception and a healthy positivity to life in almost every word as he described how he was building and sustaining his image.
In ‘The Mask’ I endeavoured to capture the student’s understanding of her own situation. This student said ‘I do spend a lot of time defending myself’ and ‘it would be nice if for a couple of days say I’d be in a normal class and I could do what everyone else would do and then go back to my normal self (Issitt J. and M. 2010 p.104). Hearing this student’s words as poetry prompted me to consider my own role in the student/teacher partnership.
The mask
I know I can’t really do
what I would really like to do.
Perhaps I could go to the Joke Shop
and say to the man standing there
‘I want to pretend I’m not me,
just for a day you see.
Can you show me two or three
masks I could possibly wear?’
And I would choose a mask for a day.
One might be clever, one might be good
One might show that I never would
have to spend time defending myself.
I must know it would not fall off
so I wouldn’t have to defend me.
No way.
The man in the Joke Shop might say
‘You must wear your mask this way:
with the nose firmly placed
in the centre of your face –
then, that night, throw it away.
When your day at the ball comes to an end
go back to your class where you’ll be
from nine ‘till three, your normal day.
That’s three pounds fifty, by the way.’
I guess I’m me.
It’s silly to pretend I can do what I can’t.
But I still wish I could
be in class A with no mask.
That would be well good.
There are many reasons for choosing the mask metaphor. This student, dreaming about being in Class A for a day, used it in her particular way. She could not attain her dream unless she disguised her identity. She may have wanted protection from other students by using a mask, or she may have considered masks have magical powers. There is much in this poem that brought me, and continues to bring me, to a deeper realm of understanding.
‘The government shouldn’t put me in there’ can be saying many things. I find this poem to be strong, persuasive and slightly upsetting. What must it be like to attend school every day with this sentiment as part of what you think school is all about?
Everyone knows more than me.
I don’t have to be told, I can just see
the Government shouldn’t put me in there.
They should see, the Government should
that I am me, and there are things I can’t do.
But there are things I can, like I know that
the Government shouldn’t do
this to me.
And if they put me in there –
and they shouldn’t – I’d think
that I knew better than them.
The Government shouldn’t put me in there.
Who is this Government anyway?
‘Who do they think they are?’
says mum when the neighbours say
they don’t like the noise or the badly parked car
it’s ‘Who do they think they are?’
If I were the Government, me,
I’d look at things differently.
If I were the Government, yes?
I’d not put anyone down.
I’d pass all the Bills and Laws and stuff,
I’d be the boss and really get tough,
so people like me would be like the rest
and have the chance to do their best.
so people like me would be like the rest
and have the chance to do their best.
This poem came from a confident single minded young woman. The strength of her words can be recognised in this forceful, powerful poem. She knew what to do about major blocks to her life, and answered my questions with authority:
‘Ring up the parents’
It’s like all the naughty ones are on one table.
Every single one is horrible.
It is a fact that if I was able
To move you I would.
I’d give you one chance, that’s all.
No more, no.
I’d get rid. Put you outside the gate
You shouldn’t be in with us.
Throwing things and all that stuff.
One chance only, that’s enough.
I’m always with the lower ones,
Always at the back.
But I’m my own man, I know what I want.
And I don’t do what you do, run with the pack.
Throwing things and all that stuff.
It’s rubbish. You think it’s a laugh
Remember – one chance, that’s enough.
It’s not only us you’re upsetting, it’s the staff.
Leave those who want to learn.
They think you’re just plain old silly you know,
And school does its best to tell you so.
But it’s ‘I don’t care,’ and ‘Who cares then?’
Perhaps you don’t for all I know
But I do. I hear it again and again
So I think I know what’s best for you.
Let’s ring up the parents, see what they can do.
You’re silly and childish and mess about.
Teachers want to teach you, not sort you out.
I’m getting low scores.
(Please don’t tell me yours)
and without you they’d be higher, without a doubt.
So I’d pick up my mobile
And I’d phone your dad.
Your parents should know we think you’re bad.
Your mum won’t like it. She wants the best for you
I’d ring your parents, see what they can do.
Again, readers will interpret this poem in different ways. In re- reading it myself, trying to determine my own interpretation, I realised this student perceives the teacher ringing the parents as threatening. I am grateful to this student, not only for trusting me with her words, but for helping me realise that ringing parents can be seen as a threat.
In the process of interviewing and then transcribing the words of the student I had communicated with the student in deep and rich ways. As I then chose words that offered themselves as ingredients of a poem, I had to consider not only why they were said but why they are being chosen and what they meant. The acts of choosing the words and finding the meanings associated with them continued my mutual endeavour with the student. Then, as the poem began to assert itself on the page, I recognised myself in it. I acknowledged myself in the poem and as part of the whole situation and life of the student. Neither I nor the student could exist without the other. The poems prompted me to examine my own contribution to the student’s understanding of what literary skills school offer.
The poems were a mixture of naivete (from the student’s words), direct speech (again from the student, together with the understandings of the teacher/writer,) and emotion (from the student’s expressions of their feelings and from the interpretation that is given to them). These three ingredients form a powerful argument to use poetry to know more about how a student accepts or rejects what school life expects. Add some rhythm and pattern and, together with personal individual interpretation, the power inherent in the art form of poetry is released. In turn the poem reveals the teacher’s knowledge and view of the educational world and the lived experience of the student. Together they produce living poetry.
The key to the process is ‘listening’: pro-active, transformative and deliberate listening to a fellow human being. Davis speaks of ‘hermeneutic listening’ as ‘an imaginative participation in the formation and the transformation of experience’ through interrogation of the assumptions and the prejudices ‘that frame perceptions and actions.’ (Davis 1996, p.53). In this context, hermeneutic listening enables the teacher to appreciate what the students were actually saying and what they were actually meaning. This sort of listening does make demands on the teacher. It asks for self-reflection; it demands teachers look further than the words themselves and use their poetic imagination to reveal and decipher what is being said.
Living poetry exists in a changing dynamic world. The teacher has to recognise this and try to match his/her thinking to this world. This will include trying to make sense of what has been said in that particular space, on that particular day, and recognise that what is important to the student will change with the passing of time. But it is this very time element - within a narrative expressing how the student sees their life changing - that becomes the living poem. Richardson puts the points acutely: ‘Through the narrative, temporality becomes interpretive in human terms. Time is made human.’ (Richardson, 1990, p. 22). These poems describe passing moments, but moments that mean a great deal to the student.
In dissembling the student’s words and forming them into a poem, the teacher/poet will go forward. Every thought, query, examination of the words and phrases, any time spent in this way, will tap into the deeper understanding of the way the student regards his world and will enrich the teacher. Up to that point these sentiments may not have been known or understood but could be of paramount importance to a teacher looking for explanations of the student’s difficulties and how to deal with them.
The developmental progression from teacher to listener to interpreter to poet-transcriber – the progression of transformative listening – offers a path that can increase the chances of a teacher really understanding the situation for the student. This poetry voices sentiments hitherto hidden but now clear and, used as an analytic tool, can be both a way for the teacher to interpret what is said and a way to reflect on his/her own engagement in the student’s world. In the paper I wrote with my son we expressed this as ‘The creative act of writing poetry captures the voice of the student whilst self consciously and legitimately facilitating the creative agency and input of the teacher,’ and ‘This work is about living people in living situations, producing words (as there are only words) that try to communicate the student’s thoughts and experiences and that tries to use these words in an art form which presents windows to both the inner life of the student and the practitioner’s deep understanding.’ (Issitt, J. and M. 2010, p.101 and p.108).
The transformative potential of poetic engagement is partly due to what is demanded of the teacher. It asks, for instance, that they use metaphor, professional understanding of classroom interactions and a desire to access an inner world. It also demands the will and the imagination to do so. In his essay ‘Myth and Education,’ the poet Ted Hughes treats us to his view of man’s inner world in which can be found remnants of the ancient stories often told to us as children. ‘This basic type of imagination,’ says Hughes ‘is our most valuable piece of practical equipment.’ The paths I have followed in transcribing and thinking about these poems have led me to some unexpected and rich terrains of human imagination and lived experience and a deepened empathy between teacher and learner.
Davis, B. 1996. Teaching mathematics; Toward a sound alternative. New York: Garland Publishing.
Hanauer, D.I. 2004. Poetry and the meaning of life. Reading and writing poetry in language arts classrooms. Toronto: Pippin.
Hughes, Ted. 'Myth and Education' in Kieran Egan & Dan Nadaner, Imagination and Education (Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 1988) pp 30-44.
Issitt, M. 2007. An exploration into the views of six fifteen year old SEN students about their literacy acquisition. Unpublished dissertation in part fulfilment of the MA in Professional Studies in Education, University of Northampton.
Issitt Margaret, 2008. Practitioner as poet in researching the literacy world of students with special educational needs; a preliminary encounter. Support for Learning Special Issue, Vol. 23 Number 4, 201-207
Issitt, J. and M. 2010. Learning about the world of the student; writing poetry for teacher-student understanding. Education 3-13, Vol. 38, No.1, February 2010, 101-109
Richardson, L. 1990. Writing Strategies; Reaching diverse audiences. Thousand Oaks, C.A: Sage, 22.
Whitehead, J. and McNiff, J. 2006. Action research living theory. London. Sage. 25
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
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