Inaugural poet Amanda Gorman inspired many last Wednesday after she read her poem, “The Hill We Climb.”
While Blue Cluster students took in the televised event, Head Teacher Rebecca Felt began crafting a lesson in her head.
“As we were watching, we saw Amanda Gorman’s speech. It was a beautiful speech, and my first thought was, ‘This is perfect for English class.’ So I set about making a lesson analyzing the poem.”
As she crafted the English lesson, however, she found that Ms. Gorman’s story applied to more areas than just poetry analysis.
Ms. Felt found a connection to RULER after Upper Division Psychologist Shayna Nash reached out to her about Ms. Gorman’s TedTalk. In the talk, Ms. Gorman discusses the personal mantra she uses before she speaks in public to keep from getting nervous.
In the Blue Cluster, students are focusing on the Meta-Moment in RULER. The Meta-Moment is a tool that helps students press the pause button between a challenging feeling and their first impulse.
“In the past we’ve rolled out different programs, and we’re really focusing this year on incorporating RULER across the curriculum in Blue Cluster,” Ms. Felt said. “For example, we’re really focusing on incorporating RULER into our DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] curriculum. We saw an opportunity to incorporate RULER when we are talking about Amanda Gorman to make her story more relatable to students, because they could connect it to something that they already know.”
After researching, Ms. Felt also found out that Ms. Gorman has an auditory processing disorder and speech articulation difficulties. This led her to make a second lesson for the Blue Cluster’s advocacy curriculum.
“In that curriculum we typically have a few lessons throughout the year where we look at famous people with learning disabilities, and we thought this was a really timely person to make a connection with, particularly because that article spoke a lot about her learning in school, and how she found poetry as a way to really hone her skills,” Ms. Felt said.
She also said that the article talked about how Ms. Gorman used accommodations, stating that she rejected accommodations at first and then embraced them, as they helped her.
Ms. Felt said this was a good message for Blue Cluster students, particularly in Dark Blue as they apply to high schools and have to start advocating for those accommodations themselves.
“I think we have quite a few students with auditory processing difficulties that can really relate,” Ms. Felt said. “Part of the student advocacy lesson had students identify accommodations that they thought might have benefitted someone with an auditory processing disorder. They’re applying their knowledge of the student curriculum through this lens of looking at Amanda Gorman.”
Ms. Felt said it is also important to expose students to a wide range of individuals who have learning differences, and keeping that in the lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“I think it’s really empowering for kids to see, and I think that it’s really important for our students to see adults feeling comfortable talking about their learning differences and be very successful in their area of interest,” she said. “I think that oftentimes when we highlight individuals with learning disabilities they tend to be white men, so it’s really important that we’re amplifying voices of a much more diverse range of people.”
In an upcoming lesson, her class will watch the TedTalk from Ms. Gorman. Ms. Felt said in it, you can hear her speech articulation difficulties, but that you don’t necessarily hear them during the Inauguration poem, which shows how hard Ms. Gorman worked to improve her speech.
“The fact that she has articulation difficulties and she presented that poem shows that just because you might struggle in a certain area doesn’t mean you can’t excel in that area,” Ms. Felt said.