Silence in the Classroom: reflections on teaching poetry in UK secondary schools and universities

Abstract

This extended contribution to English’s forum on teaching poetry seeks to shift discussion away from the capabilities, expectations, and motivations of students in university poetry seminars and invite university educators to reflect on how aspects of their practice consciously and unconsciously effect how poetry is understood by new generations. The article recounts how the author’s understanding of silence in poetry classrooms in schools and universities has developed over time. In doing so, it models processes of reflective practice and reflexivity that might be less familiar to university teaching colleagues than it is to those who have undertaken training to teach in schools. The article argues that engaging with processes of reflective practice not only stands to benefit individual poetry teachers and their students, but can also empower us to think more critically and collectively about the purposes we serve and the principles that underpin our work as educators in the discipline of English.