I received such an exceptionally beautiful present from a student today. She decided to type up one of the poems she had written a few weeks ago, cut it out herself and place in a frame for me to keep. And with a season of hope on the horizon and a new year about to begin…I wanted to share it with you. If there is anything I have learned in my five years in the classroom it is this: there is a poet inside of each and every individual’s heart. But only those who really see the world around them are able to hear the words- and I believe as children, we are, most easily, able to see around us.

Based off of Emily Dickinson’s poem, here is one of my student’s study and analysis of “hope”

Hope is the thing that runs through the field

That gallops through the beautiful trees

And never goes out of the fences without a long mane

And never stops at all

I’ve heard it on the sunniest days

And on the horizon

Yet never does it kick me off

But has a piece of me

For hope is why we wake up to experience a new day in a new light with a new sky inside the hearts of the souls passing us by. Hope and whimsy are synonymous.