Thoughtful Thursday is BACK!!  I’ve missed sharing poetry and other words of inspiration with you and your children in our Thoughtful Thursday posts.  I love how the words of a good poem can make you smile or laugh out loud, or feel sad, or angry, or just help you see things differently.  Here we feature works from poets–mostly poets of color–across the generations.  Read the poetry out loud together.  Talk with your kids about what the poems are saying to them and how the poetry makes them feel.

Today’s Thoughtful Thursday offers some thoughts and poems to celebrate the start of the new school year for both younger and older students. First, a few quotes about the value of education to remind everyone why they are spending their days in school.   Then, a classic poem for the younger set that introduces them to the mysteries of science: “Who Has Seen The Wind” by Christina Rossetti.  And finally, “Theme for English B”, a poem for more mature students from Langston Hughes (1901-1967), in which a Black student tries to complete a homework assignment as truthfully as possible.  Share these Thoughtful Thursday offerings with your children.  Enjoy!

 

  • Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. –Nelson Mandela

  • Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today. –Malcolm X

  • Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. –Benjamin Franklin

  • Don’t try so hard to fit in, and certainly don’t try so hard to be different…just try hard to be you. —Zendaya

  • Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.–Anonymous

  • A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. – Albert Einstein

  • You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think. – Winnie the Pooh

 

Who Has Seen the Wind?

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

Christina Rossetti

Theme for English B

The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you—
Then, it will be true.
I wonder if it’s that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:
It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me—who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
although you’re older—and white—
and somewhat more free.
This is my page for English B.

Langston Hughes