Everybody has a story to tell and everyone wants to be heard. It's with this philosophy that I approach my work in The Poetry Lab, a program serving urban youth in special education.
The students with whom I work have the educational label EBD (Emotional- behavioral disorder) and attend school in small self-contained classrooms, due to the fact that their behaviors prevent them from achieving success in a mainstream classroom setting. These youth are affected by a variety of social and mental health challenges, including post-traumatic stress disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiance disorder, anxiety and/or depression. For many of our students, their behavioral and mental health struggles are linked to challenging circumstances of living in poverty. 85% of students in our EBD programs receive free and reduced lunch; the majority (80%) are male and youth of color, primarily African American.
Too often, these youth are only seen for their deficits instead of their strengths. My program, The Poetry Lab, seeks to empower these students to find new and creative ways of articulating their emotions and lives. I facilitate writing groups in eight of our district’s EBD programs each semester, and work with approximately 100 students between grades 7-12 each year. Between 2004 and the present, I have brought The Poetry Lab to 12 EBD sites in our inner-city school district. The format is simple: students are given a culturally-relevant prompt (spoken-word poetry, hip-hop song), time to write, and the option to read their poem aloud. Students who initially claim to hate poetry are soon “spitting rhymes” with a renewed sense of self-confidence and improved literacy and public speaking skills. A survey conducted last year indicated that 86% of students felt that their confidence in writing increased in the group; 85% felt that being in the group helped them express their feelings in a healthy way.
A crucial component of The Poetry Lab are the student-produced CDs, which contain students’ recorded poems from throughout the semester, and serve as tangible evidence of students’ success in the program. Students take pride in their involvement in the group when it’s showcased in the form of a recorded CD. Yet as the program has grown, I’ve worn down my old microphone and am in need of two new ones, so more students can record their work to make high-quality tracks. I’m also requesting blank CDs on which to burn these audio student anthologies to give students at the end of the year. Your donation will truly help further expand my services to students, as I also train volunteers and interns to run circles in other schools, and more supplies means I can bring The Poetry Lab to more schools.
With your help, I can continue to support these students to gain the courage to speak about their lives, gain healthy coping strategies, and find success at school!
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