I started on the academic work last night. I was productive as I tracked down some books that I have in my library and added to the library with a book order.
Yesterday, we began our poetry unit at school. I enjoy it and I think, for the most part, the students do as well. They grumble a bit, but, when they start writing they are laughing. We wrote limericks. I wander around the room, talk my way through limericks, and write one or two down on the board. It is mostly off the top of my head and they are fairly rough, but the students get a charge out of it and realize not to take it too seriously. I wrote these two on the board and decided to share.
There once was a boy named Earl
He wanted so desperately to be a squirrel.
Allergic to nuts, his dreams were dashed.
Distressed he wailed and his teeth he gnashed
That young fellow named Earl.
There once was a boy who loved basketball
Three-pointers were his downfall.
He went to shooting school
There he did rule
Today, he has fame and is in the Hall.
About ivonprefontaine
In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms.
I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders.
I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs.
I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry.
I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry.
I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope and its anticipatory relationship with the future, and hope as an essential element in learning.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
Not bad for off the cuff…. 🙂
Thank you Ned.
🙂 Just callin’ ’em as I sees ’em….. You’re welcome!
Good going, Ivon! I must confess, I like the naughty ones the best!
And so do my students. One of them kept writing about boys who wanted to be girls and vice-versa. It was quite funny, because he didn’t know what to do to finish the poems.
Good to hear from you Yaz.
There once was a blogger named Ivon, who wrote what he wrote and then wrote on, inspiring the many, and not just the few, esoterically challenging, through and through.
Thank you for a lovely limerick. I will post on my site and give you credit if that is OK.
Ha! It is a simple thing and written in the spur of the moment and not exactly a work of art. But you are welcome.
LOL, I had a limerick contest on my blog some time back and it was the greatest fun. Haha, I’m sorely tempted….. Ok here goes,
There once was a fussy old Vicar who pleaded with kids not to snicker. Ignoring his pleas they giggled and teased, cause his hassock was stuck in his knickers.
LOL Sorry Ivon, I just couldn’t help myself. Bows out 🙂
I love it Elizabeth. Limericks are contagious at any age.
Elizabeth, can I post your limerick to the site? I will give you credit, but I think it is worthy of a share.
Of course Ivon, you can share it at will. 🙂
:). Play is good. Cheers
It is, it is.