I wonder, in your four decades of visiting schools and working with students, have you found that young people’s increased dependence on multitasking has made deeper listening more difficult to come by? Is writing poetry somehow less interesting or achievable for them because of a lack of calm and focus?
I don't think so. Everyone is writing! Everyone is reading! Perhaps our attention spans have changed—I think mine has—to more blip-blip-quick-change energy—and we need the oasis of calm available while working on single poems or pages more than ever—but we just have different tools now. Everything is at our fingertips. That's pretty amazing. Perhaps we need to work a little harder to find our quiet times? Or make a clearer intention about times when we DON'T stay connected through any device. Take breaks. We need more breaks. Someone told me we check our phones—was it 70 or 80 times a day? I'd prefer it to be 7 or 8.
"Everyone is writing! Everyone is reading!" says Naomi Shihab Nye, and what an encouraging way to look at it. It's my experience, too; my students aren't always reading and writing what I want them to, or the way I want them to, or with the focus I'd like, but they are communicating in writing, and they are reading. I wrote this post in 2011 (original poem included) when I got an email from NCTE headlined "Reading and Writing Need Your Help Now" expressing pretty much the same thing.
I've posted lots of Naomi Shihab Nye poems on this blog. Here are some: "Steps," "Trying to Name What Doesn't Change," "So Much Happiness," "The List."
Here's today's line in the Progressive Poem.
2 comments:
My granddaughters' classes are rather chaotic when I pick them up from school, but when I ask about it, they do share there are quieter times, too. I know when they spend time at my home, the younger ones often plays for a while, quietly, seeming to need that alone time. I guess our lives are broken up into parts lately, including parts of technology. I love Nye's writing always, the thoughtful commenting on the world.
I'm so glad you were touched by that interview, Ruth. I kind of knew you would be because I know how you feel about Naomi Shihab Nye, but still, it pleases me to know it's been sitting open all this time on your computer. Your students are a lucky bunch! :)
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