If you are interested in writing, literacy, and/or the application of both in the education and literacy crisis, this is a must-read, and my favorite book thus far in researching for the thesis.

“Schooling merely inducts children into a powerful, constructed world-view, while education, in the course of that induction, sows the seeds of critical enquiry…The writing of poetry subverts, or attempts to subvert, the idea of the child as a passive receiver of the tradition, and of what a given politician sees as the ‘basics.’” P 73

“Another mechanistic element of modern schooling, which both poetry and religion oppose, is a view of children’s learning merely in terms of what is prescribed for them.  This neglects the richness and unpredictability that children themselves bring to school, and vastly overrates attainment targets.” P 22

“Power over language, which the writing of poetry, above all things, gives us, also gives us power over our environment, human and physical, and thereby helps in our relationships with it.” P 8

“There is, as Frank Smith says (1982: 11), ‘a profound political issue here’.  Not only can the liar change the past, but also, ‘writing is revolutionary in that it can conspire to change the order…’  In other words, it can change the future.  That is why politicians, with their passion for power and keeping it, emphasise reading over writing.  In a print-oriented world, we need to be able to read in order to follow orders.  Gathering books some years ago about the teaching of poetry, I was struck by the fact that all the books I could find published before 1960 were not about the writing of poetry, but the reading of it (see chapter 12 for more on this).  The 1960’s may have foisted much kaftan-clad rubbish on us, but at least they allowed some of us to understand that poetry lends all of us a voice, if we are attentive to its demands, and the demands of what we are writing about.” P 7