The nation's Poet Laureate has a new strategy for hooking students on poetry.

It takes only one poem to make an addict," says Billy Collins, the nation's Poet Laureate for 2001-02. With that approach in mind, Collins is designing POETRY 180, a poem-a-day project for American high school students.

"The number also suggests a turn, maybe a turn back to poetry," says Collins. "High school is where poetry limps off to die, where our natural childhood instinct for poetry gets beaten out by the pressures of adolescence. Adolescence is based upon the value of acceleration, and poetry calls for us to slow down. That's why it's hard to capture high school students with the net of poetry."

Collins is selecting all the poems, which will be available on the Library of Congress Web site later this year, along with suggestions on how to implement the program.

The key element of POETRY 180 is to get the poem read aloud as part of the daily public announcements. But schools can tailor the program to fit their school day and can pick up on the project at any time.

Poems can be posted on bulletin boards for further perusal, or weekly packets can be created.

But Collins, who teaches English at the City University of New York, feels it's important that these poems not be taught. "I don't want the poem analyzed or placed on a test," insists Collins. "I want a distinction made between poetry as a subject in English class and poetry as a feature of daily life.

"If students get into the habit of hearing a poem, perhaps they will see that poetry is alive, contemporary," says Collins. He believes that if students are exposed to a hundred or more poems a year, this will increase the odds that they'll hear something they think is "cool." Students who thought they hated poetry may re-evaluate their attitudes.

Collins says the project has gotten great feedback from high school English teachers.

"I just think the students need to hear the right poems," he says. "The poems I select will be accessible, short, age-appropriate. I want poems that can be received on the first hearing. I want a smorgasbord of 180 good, clear interesting poems. Almost all will be contemporary not the old standbys.

"I am going for smart, fresh young voices, mostly American," Collins adds. "I am not trying to assemble an anthology of important poets. I want poems you can listen to in a minute and which will take you on a little ride."

When Collins was in high school, he developed a love of verse through reading Poetry magazine, which his father brought home from his Wall Street office. "I'm not sure why the magazine came there," he says, "but no one read it. So he brought it to me.

"I heard these great voices that sounded like they were talking. I started to listen and I have not stopped listening."

For More:
www.loc.gov/poetry/laureate.html.

Compact Guides to the Profession for ESP

Where can a custodian get reliable information about the hazardous chemicals he or she may be asked to use?

Is it safer for school children to ride a bus, or have their parents drive them to school?

How can food service workers find information on back injuries?

The answers to these questions, along with a great deal of other information useful for education support professionals, can be found in the new Building a Quality Workforce series of booklets from the NEA.

Agnes Smith, the NEA staffer heading this project, notes that NEA members themselves served as the main source of information.

"We brought together members from each job category and asked them to tell us about their work," Smith notes. "We used that information to make these booklets."

Each booklet describes in detail what people in the job category do, what their problems are, and how they deal with them.

Readers can find ideas and models for fighting against privatization, and for creating professional development opportunities. Also included are extensive lists of Web sites and other sources for further help.

The booklets can be used to educate other people in the school system about the full range of duties and responsibilities of education support professionals. They're also useful in bargaining, public relations, and finding ways to solve individual work
problems.

So far, the NEA has published booklets for food services staff, bus drivers, custodians, and a similar booklet for paraeducators called The NEA Paraeducator Handbook.

Four more publications--for clerical and secretarial ESP, health services, higher education support professionals, and skilled trades-- will be ready by next spring. And booklets for the other ESP job categories are scheduled for publication within 18 months.

For More:
The booklets are available on the Web at www.nea.org/esp. Printed copies can be obtained through Uniserv staff.

Canadian Kids Vote On the Worst Media

What's the most toxic music video: Eminem, Marilyn Manson, Limp Bizkit, or Ricky Martin? And what's the worst television show?

Students all across Canada will send in their choices in an extraordinary election called "Youth Vote 2001," a joint project of two Canadian educators' unions.

The project isn't all about negatives-the students will also pick the best in each media category.

French Canada has done this for 10 years, and now the entire country is involved, through the efforts of the Canadian Federation of Teachers (CFT) and the Centrale des Sydicats du Quebec (CSQ).

The unions have been separated since 1970, but five years ago, they founded the Coalition for Responsible Television.

"Working for a common cause is always welcome," says Jacques Brodeur, a media consultant and former physical education teacher who developed this project.

Teachers receive an activity kit with ballots and a video explaining three toxic ingredients: sexism, racism, and violence.

A student narrator pre-sents four toxic nominees within six categories: children's television, teen television, movies, music vid-eos, video games, and television commercials.

After discussion, the students vote.

The same activity is repeated with examples of positive video media showing messages of cooperation, nonviolent problem solving, intercultural understanding, environmental protection, equality of men and women. Students view a total of 48 clips; 24 negative and 24 positive.

Brodeur says that when teachers try to discuss media violence with their students-the media consumers-they often hit a wall, because students view the teacher as old fashioned. But Youth Vote 2001 can get through.

"Our pedagogical approach is not that teachers know what's good for the students," he says. "It's that we are looking together with the students at some familiar messages to see if some of them have damaging influences."

The results will be announced November 20.

For More:
Contact Isabelle Gareau (CSQ) at 514/356-8888, ext. 2139, or Francine Filion (CFT) at 613/232-1505, ext. 130. Or visit the Web at www.ctf-fce.ca/.

Using Marriage to Teach Economics

NEA member Velma Stewart has an unusual strategy for teaching her tenth grade civics and free enterprise students how to manage money. She "marries" them. Stewart teaches at White Castle High School in rural Louisiana.

What are these 'marriages'?
The students tell me whom they would like to marry, but I don't always give them the person they picked. Some stay single, because that's how it is in the real world.

They budget $1,500 a month for their house note, car loan, insurance, clothes, groceries, two kids in daycare, furniture, savings, and other bills.

How does it work out in practice?
Often they'll ask for more money, or devise clever excuses to avoid budgeting certain items, like saying their mom watches their kids so they don't need daycare.

Some students try to get a divorce, but they have to give me good grounds. I want to make the process as realistic as possible. They learn they can't have everything. And they realize the value of partnerships. If a student doesn't turn in his homework, I'll come down on the spouse, too.

Do students like this assignment?
They love it. They are making lifelike decisions that revolve around what we are learning in our textbooks-supply and demand, economy, family relationships.

For More:
E-mail Stewart at stew122744@aol.com.

'How is this possible?'

Junior high and high school students from New York journeyed south to the Mexican border this year to learn about conditions in the factories set up by American companies after the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in 1994.

The group was led by Maureen Casey of the New York State Labor-Religion Coalition, which sponsored the trip. Casey says she wanted the students to see first-hand that for these workers, free trade has meant working 48 hours a week to earn no more than $35, and living in squalor.

Now Casey has edited a book of photos and student writings about the trip.

"When I read the observations of the young people, I knew we needed to share their reactions with others," says Casey. "We also had an excellent photographer with us on the trip. Her images, combined with the kids' words, make for a magnificent teaching tool."

The book, Border Witness: Youth Confront NAFTA, is designed for grades seven to 12.

Sixteen-year-old Emily Wistar wrote the book's introduction: "The words 'free trade' take on a whole new meaning when seen through the eyes of a five-year-old Mexican girl, clad only in a too-big dress, no shoes to cover her feet. She stands on a pile of garbage just five feet from her 'home,' a small shack built from scrap metal, cardboard, and whatever other materials could be scavenged from the garbage dump that surrounds her. . . . How is this possible?"

"I've never been so moved in my life as I was by the kids' reactions," says Casey, "They rushed home to speak out at their churches and schools."

For More:
Go to www.labor-religion.org/internationaltop.htm#book or phone 800-342-9810, ext. 6294. Border Witness costs $30 plus $3.50 s&h.