Powerful Poetry

Mr J was interested in working in a lot of the bullying theme into his ELA classes this week. This was a spur of the moment decision that had no preparation for it. I think he had intended on delivering a lot of instructions verbally, without introducing the topic, discussing it, etc... It was a good idea to incorporate bullying into the lessons, since there had been a bullying assembly this week that, in my mind, didn't have much of an impact on the students. In an attempt to help, I jumped on the computer and made up a list of discussion questions and the like that might help the class along, rather than let them flounder with what to write. I've noticed that a lot of students feel rather insecure when they aren't given some kind of framework or example to work from. They aren't sure that what they are doing is correct, or if they don't have a starting point, they become very anxious and frustrated. And then nothing gets done in class. In any case, Mr J let me take over teaching this rather scrambled together lesson on bullying to the Boisterous Classes, which went reasonably well, but with large amounts of groaning and small amounts of work being produced. Hm...

However, I still had two more classes to teach on Friday that were also to be subjected to the bullying theme and expected to produce a response to it. Since the unit was on poetry, I went on the Internet and dug up some poems on power. I decided on looking for power poetry since I didn't want the students to know right away that they would be getting into bullying. No, I am not a genius, the idea came from a photograph and poem duo called To the Little Polish Boy Standing With His Arms Up. There are several lessons plans online about teaching empathy and power, which eventually gets whittled down to forms of bullying. I didn't want to introduce the Holocaust, so I went with the idea of power. Anywho, I found some great poems about power and used them as discussion pieces within the class. It went much better than I had expected.

Immediately one student wanted to know who Amy Kerswell (the author) was speaking to. I let the class answer that. They had a variety of answers, from parents to boyfriend to government to abuser to friend (to Michael Jackson), with a variety of reasons why these people might be possible. One student wondered if it was racially motivated, someone wondered it if had to do with slavery, or with the Holocaust. I wrote those questions down, and let them continue with their self-prompted and self-led discussion. Someone asked about the use of the word power and somebody said Amy Kerswell was really angry at the other people in the poem, the bystanders. They talked about who the bystanders could be in various situations- other family members or friends or entire civilizations. They talked about what it meant to be a victim, and that in all the cases they had mentioned, there was various kinds of bullying going on. We then got into a discussion about what it meant to be a bully, and they realized that bullying wasn't something that just happened in schools. They wondered if bystanders were worse than bullies because it was like giving permission to hurt someone. They wondered if the "you" in the poem that had the "power to bring me down" was actually directed to the bystanders. They didn't like the idea of giving someone permission to hurt somebody else. Suddenly the assembly they had attended earlier the week took on a whole different meaning for them, more than just a police constable threatening them with charges of assault.

The students were then asked to write a response to the poem and to the assembly about their thoughts on bullying. I told them that anything was fine- they could critique the assembly so long as it was done in a constructive way, they could relate personal experiences, write down their questions, or respond to the poem they had just read. What a difference between this class's motivation and the Boisterous Classes' motivation. With the five or ten minute discussion about a poem on power, the idea of bullying had taken on a whole new meaning, and they all knew they had something to say about it. In the same throw, the students also realised that in order to understand a poem's meaning sometimes it's important to know when the poem was written, and by who. Some of the students were interested in going home and finding out more about Amy Kerswell to help them better understand the poem. Amazing. And that's the note I ended my Friday on! Here's the poem I used:

Powers that Hold Forever
by Amy Kerswell

You had a power over me.
On that day that you hurt me.
You had the power to bring me down.
It's a power that's never gone.
A power that's never loosened its grip.
You preyed on my weakness
You knew I was defenceless.
But it would appear you didn't care.
It would appear no one cared

That I was weak and helpless
I couldn't fight back.
God only knows how scared I was.

You had the power to scare me.
They gave you the power to hurt me
You took the power to hurt me.
Power is a strong thing.
Jerks like you love power.

Power never loosens the grip.
Never lets me be.
That's cos you scared me so
You scared me with your power
You scared me witless

Taken from here.