By Amy Duke
Clinton Arionzi is the first to admit that poetry isn’t his area of expertise. But a few years ago, when the agricultural education teacher at Eden High School in Kampala, Uganda, looked for ways to engage his students beyond a traditional lecture, he turned to poetry to help them explore agricultural concepts.
The idea, he said, grew from his involvement with the Global Teach Ag Network — known as GTAN — in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, which provides programs and resources for educators from kindergarten through higher education to teach global agriculture, sustainability and food security.
One of its programs, GTAN Creates, encourages teachers to incorporate creative expression in their classrooms. While using poetry in the classroom was a new teaching tool for Arionzi, he decided to try it. He said the students’ response surprised him.
“My students embraced the activity, participated more enthusiastically and found new ways to connect agricultural concepts to their own experiences,” Arionzi said, adding that his experience inspired teachers in 14 East African schools to use poetry in teaching. “Poetry is a way of bringing fun and life into my classroom.”
GTAN Creates is supported through a philanthropic gift by Hiram Larew, a retired U.S. Department of Agriculture employee and longtime poet who saw an opportunity to bring his two interests — poetry and food security — together.
Source : psu.edu