- A student from our school was expelled for gang-related activity that injured another student
- We took the Missouri MAP test and are still waiting on the results
- Our new staff for next year is complete and they seem pretty awesome
- We had the Science Fair in week 39
- Almost all students have their Worlds of Fun tickets for the last week of school
- We have 2 weeks of classes left as of tomorrow
- With help I started our very own AVMS writing club, the Inkslingers (not a tattoo parlor I promise)
It's the Inkslingers that I am writing about today.
The club came about during a typical Tuesday morning staff meeting with the principal and the core teachers in March. Next year, there will be tutoring time built into the school day, some of which will be used for academic tutoring and some of which will be used for clubs and organizations. This is thrilling for us AND the kiddos, because this year, outside of our amazing music program and a few valiant efforts at organized sports, there wasn't much available for the students as far as extracurriculuar opportunities. I, most definitely, jumped on the "novel" idea of sponsoring a writing club next year (pun!!!), with publishing opportunities, events, etc. However, as we were finishing our poetry unit in 6th grade LA, I realized that we just MIGHT have enough student interest to start our club THIS YEAR.
Tonight, we hosted one of my principal's amazing writing acquaintances as our first guest speaker. I'll be referring to her as Ms. El.
When Ms. El came into my room, I was stuck by how big she was - tall, wide, a commanding presence. Her head was shaved and she had the large kind eyes one would describe as soulful. While she got situated pulling up various poetry links on my computer, I lingered outside in the hallway. I was nervous, wondering how many students would actually stay today (tutoring has been a major fail as far as student retention this year). Faces of students flashed by me in the hallway and flitted through my mind. So many of them are creative, thoughtful, introspective writers, but only a few know this about themselves. I wanted those kids to be the ones to come today.
Sure enough, that's who showed up. All 6th graders except for 1 7th grade girl. 3 boys, 8 girls. Some have proved that they have a way with words, others have that interest in a place so deep that even they can't see it yet. While they rustled their cookie bags and slurped their Capri Suns, Ms. El took the floor and introduced herself. I can summarize her introduction in a few words: Intensity. Sass. Depth. Humor. The kids were completely drawn in right from the beginning.
She talked about being a feminist (we used Latin roots to determine the meaning of that word) then performed a poem called," S.O.S - For The Girls" or something similar. She raised her voice and lowered it, walked to and fro, shimmied her overabundant hips and signaled with her hands and fingers.
I watched the students as Ms. El performed. They were SO uncomfortable at first with her bold performance. I think it made them feel exposed. My theory is they are trying so hard, every day, to blend in with their surroundings, so that when they see a woman - an older woman - a very large black woman - putting herself in what seemed to them to be an uncomfortable position, they are thoroughly mystified and confused. Regardless of the trepidation written all over their little faces, Ms. El received a thunderous wave of applause at the end of her poem.
From there we discussed the purpose of performance poetry. Ms. El discussed its use as a tool to make political and social statements. I cut my eyes towards the kids, beginning to worry that this was going way over their heads. But no, they seemed focus. They were keeping up with her statements about being a minority, being a woman, and expressing that joy and frustration through poetry.
She managed to get one of the students to come up and stand with her. She asked the student to rap for us. Now this student is known as a rapper, I've seen her notebook where she keeps her raps. But, as middle schoolers are wont to do, the paralyzing fear of being in front of her peers overwhelmed her.
So the other students ducked their heads, averted their eyes, leaned back, turned away. Suddenly, the student found her rap. She performed it. We all clapped. The sudden flood of support for this one student nearly knocked me out. And her shining eyes as she sat down nearly brought me to tears.
Then Ms. El decided to show some poetry clips from YouTube. I was game, the kids were game. But my heart leapt into my throat when the language emerged. Here are just a few of the words that were performed by the slam poets on the clips she chose:
-vagina
-nigger
-shit
-damn
-fuck
-motherfucker
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything within me rebelled - my teacher sense were going haywire, my spiritual senses were tingling. I began to calculate how many irate phone calls I was going to receive from parents tomorrow. I wondered if I was aiding the spiritual darkness around my students by standing silently by while they engaged in this R-rated material.
But the amazing thing was, the students engaged with the language by examining it as a tool. Ms. El explained that "you have to take responsibility for your words." As a result, there was limited giggling once they heard these words. No one grimaced, smirked, or laughed. They just watched, listened, and discussed them at a distance. You must understand that when 11, 12, and 13 year olds do this, it's stunning.
I can not wait for our writing club next year. Now's the time for me to get back into the groove of being a practicing writer to prepare!
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