Young children are capable.

Young children are deeply moved

and highly motivated.

I can hear every child’s voice

and see each jewel sparkle.

Young children teach about the world.

The best teaching,

Our students.

Often as teachers, we think that we have to lead the lesson or lead the teaching, however children are such smart individuals and often times, adults don’t give them the credit they deserve. They are capable of much more than we often allow them to be capable of and my poem highlights all the values that children bring to the classroom and shows how we as teachers need to view children because the way we view them often impacts their own success. We as teachers are constantly learning still and there is so much we can learn from children. In chapter 3 of Black Ants and Buddhists, Cowhey explains that our classroom should be grounded in the lives of students. This is important because our students all have such unique lives and when we take parts of all of these lives and bring them into the class, we can gain so many unique perspectives on the world, just from listening to our children (Cowhey, 2006). Additionally, in Chapter 3, they give an example of how the students were so interested in the milkweeds that came into the class rather than the lesson planned so the teacher scrapped his lesson and the class learned about milkweeds instead. This is a valuable lesson because it shows that often times students own interests and inquiries may not be something you would have considered and with them we can learn something new that we wouldn’t have else learned (Cowhey, 2006). Overall, students should be centered in the class and we as teachers should be open to all that children themselves can teach us.