Thank You, Taylor Mail

Education is the miracle, I’m just the worker.

--Taylor Mali, from "Miracle Workers"

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Opening Day Eve has passed, as has your free time to watch movies. The time for inspiration is over; it’s school time! Any “free time” now is most likely spent planning, grading, sometimes even getting an uninterrupted night’s sleep.

But if you want a quick breather and to put a smile back on your face, especially on a difficult day, I recommend a quick hit of YouTube to the tune of Taylor Mali. Taylor is a poetry slam champion, a passionate advocate for the joy of teaching, and a wonderful performer who will make you laugh, challenge you to think, and then make you laugh again.

“What Teachers Make” is the most obvious choice from his catalog of poems. This rant against the audacity of a party guest asking about a teacher’s salary, as if that is the big draw to the profession, has made the rounds of teacher chats and blogs.

This was one of my first YouTube finds and has remained one of my favorites. It never gets old, and if you haven’t seen it, you’re in for a treat.

If you like that, try out “Totally Like Whatever” and “The The Impotence of Proofreading.”

I’ve shown the first one to students and some totally get the satiric send up of the imprecise speech and annoying verbal habits of today’s society, not just the youth. (Did you see how “whatever” and “totally” made the 2009 list of most annoying words? Anyway, at the end of the day it is what it is.)

As for the second poem, well, few things make me laugh out loud like this comical imagining of over relying on a spell checker. But make sure no one else is around while viewing it as the unintended results of a misspelling can be hilariously and embarrassingly inappropriate (we’ve all been there, right?). Guilty pleasure.

One of the most advantageous things about these gifts is that the rules of the poetry slam say that each entry can be no longer than 3 minutes. That means you can view one in between classes, if the need arises.

And it usually does. Enjoy!

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