I have not posted haiku for a while. We wrote haiku as our last activity of the poetry unit. Whenever we write poems, I roam the classroom with a marker in hand. There are four whiteboards in the room and I write randomly as thoughts come. It helps students on two levels. I write poetry and it is not just them being told to do it. As well, I offer exemplars, some good and some less so. Here is a haiku sampling.
Water seeks freedom
Released from lethargy
Water plunges, plummets.
Fry it in a pan
Friends for eggs and potatoes
Pig meat, oh soooo good!
Did I mention some were not great?
Fedora wearing
The coolest Rat Pack member
Sinatra maybe.
One student wears a fedora. I mentioned that it reminded me of the Rat Pack. He had no idea what that was or who Frank Sinatra was, but I told him it was cool to be compared to Frank Sinatra.
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, nonviolence and its anticipatory relationship with the future, as essential elements to teaching and learning.
Academic publications can be found at Ivon Gile Prefontaine on ResearchGate
Teacher as Transformer 
Great haiku and great teaching method. I wonder if it’s possible to publish the students haiku.
It is. I would get permission which is probably not the difficult or I could publish them without sharing names. I have done something similar with Science projects we have done. I will try to do something in the next week or so.
Thank you for a great idea Eric.
I couldn’t help but chuckle at the blurb after the last haiku.
I’m old enough to know who you are talking about. 😉
And, now my students can say they are old enough to recall Sinatra might be a singer. I listened to him on the radio as I drove home sing Fly Me to the Moon. It was a nice finish to the day.
That last one is DEFINITELY my favorite. In fact, it could stand up to most of the great haiku I’ve read by Buson, Issa and Basho!
Thank you Bela. That is lofty praise.
True though! Nicely done.
Oh these poor young folk who do not know of Frank Sinatra and company.
I see part of my role to introduce them to a wide variety of music. Yesterday, they listened to Michael Franti and Mumford and Sons.
I really like numbers 1 & 3. And yes…way to be hands-on as an educator! My Dad was a Prof Dr. (of physics) and I respect the teaching profession enormously. 🙂
Thank you for the lovely comment.
Your comment about Sinatra and the student made me smile! Love the haikus!
As I drove home, I got to listen to Sinatra on the radio sing Fly Me to the Moon. It was a nice.
Thank you Carolyn.
Yes, kids need to see teachers actively writing! I am glad you do that. (Remember Stephen King shared his work with his students too, back when he was “nobody”.)
Every time I hear Sinatra I think of the bulletin board our art teacher had in high school:
To be is to do:Socrates
To do is to be: Sartre
Do Be Do Be Do: Sinatra
Great post!
Thank you for the lovely little poem at the end Jen. As I drove home yesterday, I heard Sinatra sing Fly Me to the Moon. It seemed fitting.
😀
Perhaps haiku as a Japanese Art form is served best by direct and unclouded observation. It could be nature or everyday events, relayed as is! Cheers professore. 😀
Thank you and cheers back.
Frank who? ;-D! I mentioned “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” in a post awhile back and a significant percentage of the younger readers appeared to have no idea as to who that was. Of course, there are many people in their generation’s pop culture whom I have no idea about either. That is even beginning to happen to my grown children. They are losing the “cool” of youth.
Russ
Knowing who Jonathan Livingston Seagull is requires owning the soundtrack in vinyl. I take it upon myself to share the things I enjoy from previous generations. My students are always surprised when I say I listen to Lady Gaga or others of the modern generation.