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A couple of weeks ago Kate came home from school in a huff. She was more than put out that her teacher made her rewrite her poetry masterpiece. Since these posters were going to be hung up around the school Kate’s gentle teacher decided that Kate’s poem might scare the kindergarteners so she had to redo the whole thing.
I thought this was funny at the time and asked her why the poor bird had to die. ‘Because it rhymes with fly!’, Kate said. Hmmm..she couldn’t go with sky instead of die?!?
BUT – it was all fun and games until Kate brought me another poem later that week. She smiled at me sweetly as she read it to me. It started with ‘Inside my heart are…’ I thought, awwww, this is going to be sweet. NOT! I don’t have the exact wording but it went something like ‘Inside my Heart are 1 stinging wasp, two punching fists, three biting snakes, four bloated tummies (that is my gluten free girl talking), etc.’ She finished with ‘That’s a poem about anger Mama.’ No kidding.
What was going on?!? Why all the dark thoughts? I immediately emailed her teacher to ask if she needed to checked into a 72 hour hold in the psych ward or at least get her into some serious counseling. Ms. Lee emailed right back to talk me off the ledge. Indeed they had listened to a poem almost exactly like the anger one but it was about joy. As a class they talked about other emotions they could do instead and then they had to try writing it themselves.
Phew! Once I knew that my kid hadn’t gone off the deep end I could actually appreciate the imagery her words evoked. I could really imagine her feeling those angry feelings when she gets upset. This is my kid of high highs and low lows. Thank heavens she is mostly on the high side, but watch out when you get her mad!
I’m just waiting to hear from Hallmark. I’ve got a rock star poet and I’m thinking these could be perfect for a new line of anger cards. Or cards for hunters…