Finding a Moment of Peace in Poetry
/Working and learning from home can blur the line between being on the clock and knowing when it’s time to relax. Educators and students are constantly connected, which can make it difficult to find a moment of quiet. In this week’s blog, we hear from a group of teachers who’ve found a way to bring a little peace into their digital classroom with the help of COMPAS Teaching Artist Marie Olofsdotter.
Marie Olofsdotter facilitated the virtual Peace Poetry residency at Meadowbrook elementary.
“Our team has been working nonstop 12-hour days, including weekends, to make distance learning happen. It’s pretty overwhelming,” says Kim Mach, a fourth-grade teacher at Meadowbrook Elementary in Golden Valley. Like educators across the country, Mach has been feeling the pressure of teaching remotely, as have Meadowbrook teachers Kelley White, Stephanie Bell, and Tammy Treiber. “It’s just all work all the time,” agrees White, “No due dates, finish whenever you can, but that means we’re getting assignments all the time too.”
With such a hectic learning environment for both students and teachers, it’s been difficult to take a breath and find a little calm. Ironically, the year-long theme for fourth graders at Meadowbrook is “Peace.” For the past 20+ years, teachers have integrated discussions and units about peace into classroom curriculum, and usually this means an arts residency centered around the concept of peace.
For years now, this artist residency has fallen to COMPAS Teaching Artist Marie Olofsdotter. Marie is a poet, storyteller, and performer who grew up in Sweden before moving to Minnesota (read her recent Artist Spotlight). However, with the advent of distance learning, it was unclear if Marie would be able to return this spring.
“Typically, students read live in front of each other at the end of the program,” says Bell, “Or they get to turn one of their poems into a visual piece of art that hangs in the hallway of the school.” The format of the residency would definitely need to be different., but educators are nothing if not resourceful. The Meadowbrook team and Marie were committed to bringing a little peace to their students one way or another.
Marie recorded a series of video lessons to help students compose their work.
To accommodate at-home learning, Marie turned her residency into a series of videos. She read and analyzed examples of poetry with students, then asked them to brainstorm ideas and ruminate on the concept of peace. Once students generated material for their poems, Marie helped shape them by leading a variety of craft exercises. The teachers facilitated student responses in a number of ways, collecting poems on digital learning platforms such as Seesaw, Google Classroom, PadLit, and Flipgrid.
Throughout the entire experience, Marie guided student writing and radiated a sense of peace. “Marie did a great job of staying her authentic self in the videos. The kids feel like they really know her,” says White. “My class said it was one of the best distance learning activities they’ve done so far,” says Treiber. “Some of the kids said they thought they were horrible writers, but by the end of the lesson they felt like they could be poets.”
These days, it’s more important than ever to set aside time for quiet reflection and relaxation, and creativity is one of the tools for finding that peace within ourselves. Luckily, artists and educators are always willing to help us get there. Enjoy the examples of peace poetry from the students of Meadowbrook Elementary below!
Want to bring a COMPAS Teaching Artist to your digital classroom students for a remote creativity experience? Look through our customizable Virtual Classroom options and reach out to us with questions!
