I'm Major Jackson and this is the Slowdown.

This episode is one big shout out.

I'm sending special gratitude and thanks for all the language arts and English teachers.

Those who are undaunted, who welcome the challenge, who revel in the task of bringing poetry

into the classroom. They geek out on line breaks and line endings. They introduce students to

Iambic pentameter, then help them find their own rhythms. I'm talking teachers who build

students vocabulary and their confidence. Teachers who model critical thinking by asking questions

rather than assert one correct answer, who realize conformity is the enemy of poetry.

This episode is for the teacher who gives students opportunities to exist in their feelings

so that their minds embrace texture so that they learn to speak their emotions and live in their

bodies fully. A self assurance no one can take away from them. They turn libraries into cafes where

tea is served. We're a fourth grader reads and owed about their Nana and where their friends

learn to snap their fingers in approval. Shout out to the high school teacher who organizes

field trips to see funny poets, serious poets, most importantly alive and breathing poets.

They teach students ways to talk about the world by pointing to the things in the world

and thus in part ways of seeing. They teach pattern making through poetic form,

then how to break the rules when a revolution of the heart needs to occur. They invite a long

lasting love for language. Shout out to teachers who are poetry proselytizers, who know a child's

end witness needs protection and care who set poems before students to show poetry's power

to answer confusing moments. They discuss deferred dreams, roads not taken, and America singing.

Over the years I have visited their classes. The laughter they share with their students around

a poem binds them forever. Their commitment to both our culture and their students' growth is

...