A poetry of caring

The World by Kayleigh, age 11

The world is ours

A place to help others

Something you don't put on the shelf

Somewhere to express yourself.

With teacher Deb Pomeroy '95, MSEd '01 at the helm, fifth-grade students at Maine Memorial Elementary take a creative and proactive approach in addressing homelessness.

Hand-written posters, neatly printed on red, blue, green and yellow construction paper and displayed at eye level for 11-year-olds on the
classroom wall, tell the story of what Deb Pomeroy's fifth-grade class has been learning:
¥ Approximately 3.5 million people, 39 percent of them children, are likely to experience homelessness in a given year
¥ 40 percent of children in shelters are under the age of 5
¥ 1 in 10 homeless children don't go to school
¥ Natural disasters can make people homeless; so can illness or the loss of a job
¥ Children who are homeless get sick more often

"I was surprised to find out how small and loud homeless shelters are," said Korena, one of Pomeroy's pupils. Lauren, her classmate, agreed, "It's hard for kids to do homework or study there." Both girls learned about the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, and think the government should allocate more money to address the problem of homelessness.

Creativity + compassion = a proactive approach
Researching, learning and presenting the facts is just one component of Pomeroy's curriculum on homelessness. Enabling the children to do something about it in a creative way is another.

The children themselves came up with the idea in 2001, when Pomeroy was a student teacher. Expressing admiration for their poems and stories at lunch one day, she said, "You're so clever, you should write a book!" The remark ignited the children's imagination.

"We thought about what you said to us, Mrs. Pomeroy," the fifth graders said to her a week later. In response to Pomeroy's puzzled look, they explained further: "We want to write a book to help people who don't have a home."

Eureka! They had identified the perfect project for Pomeroy to develop as part of her coursework for Social Action as Curriculum, a graduate seminar created and taught by Education Professor Barbara Regenspan. The result? A multifaceted, integrated curriculum that simultaneously introduces children to the world of poetry, addresses their goals and interests, promotes social responsibility and empowers children, who learn that they can make the world a better place by creating a book of poetry that generates money to help the homeless.

"We are all responsible for helping each other, especially in today's world," said Pomeroy. "We have a high poverty rate in our community. It's important for kids to know that people can overcome that."

Pomeroy knows firsthand just how important. "I grew up in a family that didn't have much," she said. "My mother cleaned houses and my father was not working." Pomeroy is proud and grateful to have been a member of Upward Bound, a federally funded program that enabled her to become the first generation in her family to earn a college degree.

How the program works
In Pomeroy's homelessness curriculum, children begin by reading Eve Bunting's Fly Away Home, a story about a homeless boy and his father who live at an airport. They research homelessness on the Internet and share their findings with each other. They read, discuss and write various forms of poetry, including autobiographical poems, cinquains and diamontes, haikus, limericks, and acrostic, lyric and narrative poems. They identify common elements found in poetry, such as imagery, emotion and rhyme.

The children also coordinate the logistical details involved in creating and selling their book. They not only illustrate, design and bind an attractive collection of their poems, they also create and track order forms, and distribute the proceeds to organizations of their choosing.

In 2003, Pomeroy's fifth-grade class raised $218 through the sale of their poetry book, Making a Difference One Poem At a Time, and donated half the proceeds to the National Coalition for the Homeless and the other half to a local organization of their choosing. This year, Pomeroy was successful in her effort to expand the curriculum to make it a school-wide project. The children have decided to support the Homeless Coalition of Broome County.