Suggestions and Guidelines
Suggestions and Guidelines
This website was created to give teachers a place to share their reflections on teaching and the teacher’s life. We hope you’ll consider sending in a blog post. The following are suggestions and guidelines – but we’re happy to consider other ideas! Send your ideas and stories to us – and we’ll work with you to create a blog post, share it here and via Facebook and Twitter. Questions? Contact us at teachingwithheartfirepoetry@gmail.com,
1. Reflect on Teaching and the Teacher’s Life
Share your reflections on your life and work as a educator, tell us what it’s like being a teacher, share something that’s on your heart and mind, or reflect on a teaching experience. Tell us what this experience was like and the impact it had on you and others. We’re looking for a wide variety of reflections and stories, but please keep the overall tenor of your piece positive. This site is about building up, not tearing down.
Mel Glenn’s Teaching Retired Teachers and Emily Brisse’ Resilience: On Working and Mothering are two good examples of blog posts. Questions? Feel free to contact us at teachingwithheartfirepoetry@gmail.com. When you’re ready, fill out the submission form and hit submit.
2. Reflect on Your Favorite Poem
Our books, Teaching with Heart, Leading from Within and Teaching with Fire, are all based on the premise that reading poetry stirs up an inner conversation about questions, emotions, and things that matter. Because poetry slows us down and focuses our attention—it can yield poignant insights into what is most significant and enduring in our work as educators. We are seeking reflections modeled on the teachers’ commentaries in these books. Here’s a great example: Annette Breaux’s reflection on Emily Dickinson’s “If I can stop one Heart from breaking.”
For your poetry reflection, identify a poem that matters to you. We appreciate that you may have written poetry of your own, but this website focuses on poems written by others that are meaningful to you.Write a brief commentary (up to 250 words) that describes your personal relationship and connection to the poem. Your commentary should not be an explication, but a personal narrative that describes how this poem touched you and how it helps you make sense of your life and work as an educator. Here are some prompts you might consider:
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How did you discover the poem?
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What is the story behind your connection with this poem?
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How does this poem inform your work or your life?
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What do you sense this poem is trying to tell you?
3. Share Your Ideas for Using Poetry
While reading poetry is often a quiet, solitary act, poems can also be shared and read together in groups. Doing so can create opportunities for new understandings of the poem, each other and the life or work we have together. Please send us your story of how you have used poetry to teach, inspire, open up conversations, work with others, create community or create a special space of your own. Here a few questions to guide your writing:
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How have you used poetry in your classroom, with your students, on behalf of fellow teachers?
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How have you used poetry to lift people’s spirits, to create a deeper understanding of some lesson, to create community?
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Where do you post poems? For yourself? For others?
Teachers Talk Interviews
Answer the Teachers Talk Interview questions:
What are 5 things you can’t teach without? What’s the best teaching advice you ever got? Answer these and other engaging questions in the Teachers Talk Interview Form. Encourage your fellow teachers to send in their responses and check out the interviews in the Teachers Talk gallery.
Thank You, Teachers Project
Every day in classrooms across the country, dedicated professionals put in long hours educating students, preparing lessons, grading homework, engaging with families, collaborating with colleagues, and overcoming obstacles. Their work is vital to children, parents, communities, and our future, yet rarely do teachers receive the thanks they deserve. The Thank You, Teachers Project wants to change that by sending a wave of gratitude to teachers across the country.
We invite you to write a thank you letter to a special teacher in your life. Thank a teacher who made a difference in your life – in the classroom, on the field, in the art studio, on stage, in the library, in the principal’s office, and beyond. Parents are encouraged to help their children participate. For more information, please check out the Thank You, Teachers Project, our FAQ, and then use our easy form to post your letter.
We also offer a special Gift Package: In addition to posting your letter online, we will send a printed copy of your thank you letter and an autographed copy of Teaching with Heart: Poetry that Speaks to the Courage to Teach to your teacher. Teaching with Heart is a collection of ninety treasured poems, each accompanied by a teacher’s personal reflection that speaks to the questions, challenges and triumphs that lie at the heart of the profession. This uplifting collection salutes the tenacious and relentless optimism of teachers and their belief that, despite the many challenges and obstacles of the teaching life, much is possible.
Shape, Expand and Support the Conversation
Shape the Conversation: We want this website to work for you. Please share your ideas about how to expand and deepen the conversation. Contact us at teachingwithheartfirepoetry@gmail.com.
Expand the Conversation: Share the Teaching with Heart, Fire and Poetry website and blog with colleagues. and the call for submissions with your colleagues and throughout your networks. The more the merrier!
Support the Conversation: Creating and editing the blog posts and sharing them with the world takes a great deal of time. This is all done on a volunteer basis — so any and all support would be greatly appreciated! Please consider “Paying It Forward” by writing a thank you letter and sending a gift book to a special teacher through our Thank You, Teachers Project.
Please also let us know if you have questions, ideas of how to make this site work for you, or other ways you’d like to contribute. We’ll do our best to take on as many ideas as possible. Contact us at teachingwithheartfirepoetry@gmail.com.
We look forward to hearing from you!
