Poetry can benefit the education system, says Israeli teacher

“Poetry can naturally encourage creativity, self-awareness, sensitivity and tolerance. If we are to educate people in a democratic state, then those ideas are our cornerstones.”

By TOBIAS SIEGAL
Gutman’s passion for language is deeply rooted in his history and consequently, in his self-identity. (photo credit: TOBIAS SIEGAL)
Gutman’s passion for language is deeply rooted in his history and consequently, in his self-identity.
(photo credit: TOBIAS SIEGAL)
The status of poetry in Western education has shifted dramatically in the past 200 years. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, poetry played an integral part in the American and European education systems. Poems were used in classrooms as a means to promote citizenship and communal ideas, but also as a tool for translating complex notions like morals and mathematics into a language – not any less complex – that children could comprehend more easily. And while poems can surely be heard in classrooms today, it seems like poetry and most high school curriculums are no longer on the same page.
For Shuki Gutman, 54, a poet and civics teacher at HaMoshava High School in Zichron Ya’acov, Israel, that won’t do. Gutman’s idea of education is intertwined in metaphors, similes and analogies. For him, poetry was a ladder that helped him reach his higher calling. Now, he envisions a world where poetry not only plays a more central role in classrooms, but is more accessible to the general public, perhaps even covering the lobbies of banks and government offices one day.
“Poetry can naturally encourage creativity, self-awareness, sensitivity and tolerance. If we are to educate people in a democratic state, then those ideas are our cornerstones,” Gutman says.
Having been writing in one way or another his entire life and with four published poetry books under his name, Gutman has a rich history of self-exploration and expression, which he firmly believes are important aspects of one’s healthy development and growth; lacking, he insists, in today’s prevailing notion of education and in the set of values we choose to pass on to our youths.
Gutman’s passion for language is deeply rooted in his history and consequently, in his self-identity. Growing up in the serene city of Kfar Saba to Argentinian migrants, he remembers life as a constant shift between languages. Hebrew was used in school and the public sphere, while Spanish was reserved for home and family. He describes living in opposing worlds, always exploring the gap between his two competing identities. And while some may think of acquiring a new language as a rigorous task, Gutman saw it as a blessing. “I would visit the library every single week, reading Hasamba, [and books by] Ephraim Kishon, Yehonatan Gefen, Galila Ron-Feder, Dvora Omer... basically, any Hebrew children’s book I could get my hands on.”
Shuki Gutman is seen reading poetry at an event in Netanya. (Credit: Courtesy)
Shuki Gutman is seen reading poetry at an event in Netanya. (Credit: Courtesy)
At home, he was lucky to have parents who appreciated literature and art and would support his future writing endeavors. “My parents saw music and poetry as important aspects of life. As they couldn’t read me stories in Hebrew themselves, they bought me tapes,” Gutman reminisces, mentioning Arik Einstein, Chava Alberstein, Shalom Hanoch and the Israeli rock band Kaveret as major influences at a young age.
His exposure to poetry and music early on in life, led Gutman to explore self-expression through writing himself. After noticing that the Maariv Lanoar magazine was publishing poems sent in by teenagers from across the country, he began exploring the idea and sending in his own, which eventually got published once every couple of weeks. “I suddenly felt like I could really express myself. It strengthened my will to write and gave me a lot of confidence and belief in myself,” Gutman says, gratefully.
But the way in which poetry can truly bring people together, became most evident to Gutman when he least expected it: during his military service. A training accident involving the death of a pilot he knew from base had a strong effect on him. “We weren’t that close, but I remember it really rattled me … I saw him that morning and later in the afternoon he was gone,” Gutman remembers. His instinct was to express the mixture of feelings surging through him in the form of a poem, and he did. He poured his previously unarticulated thoughts and feelings into a piece that he titled “Farwell, my Brother Pilot,” which was later published by the IDF weekly magazine Bamahane. But Gutman didn’t expect what followed. The fallen pilot’s parents had come across Gutman’s poem and decided to reach out to him. “A Lt.-Col. came looking for me. At first, I thought I’d done something wrong,” Gutman says. “He told me they were touched by the poem and wanted to thank me. I later got a letter and a small gift in the mail. It was a
sign of gratitude, and I felt it.”
His passion for language and its endless forms of manipulation eventually led young Gutman to pursue a career in journalism. He worked as a communications correspondent in Hod HaSharon and later as a political correspondent in Jerusalem. He eventually became the spokesperson of several notable bodies in Israel, including Magen David Adom, the Hod HaSharon Municipality and the Association for the Wellbeing of Israeli Soldiers.
“After what felt like racing through life, I finally decided to quit the race around 10 years ago,” Gutman remembers. “I took a deep breath and began a process of self-observation,” he adds, explaining what led him to make the change and become an educator. “Realizing that I wanted to do something meaningful with my life, I found myself being drawn to education.”
And during his years in the Israeli education system, Gutman found that the thing that allowed him to reach out to students and communicate with them in the most meaningful way was poetry. He was a high school grade level coordinator for about four years and was responsible for 240 students. “You go through a process with these young people, who are in a very important stage in their lives, and you stay with them until they complete high school and enlist to the military,” Gutman says. “And I’ve seen the value that poetry can give them,” he adds.
Gutman would issue a weekly newsletter that was sent to students and parents over the weekends and would always include a poem at the end. “I started receiving positive feedback. People would tell me they can’t wait to read the next one. I included all kinds of poems, by various Hebrew poets.” And the peak came when students started approaching Gutman and telling him that his initiative had led them to write poems which they were hoping to publish in the weekly newsletter themselves. “That meant everything to me,” Gutman shares.
“My approach to education is that beyond transferring knowledge, we have the responsibility of educating people to be better by providing them meaningful tools and skills that will help them better understand the world,” Gutman says. “Poetry can do that. In school, it can expose students to new patterns that don’t exist elsewhere.”
Gutman has quite a bit to say about what he calls “the glorification of the sciences.” He believes that most people today choose to pursue careers that lack emotional expression, which poetry can provide. And that’s not all.
“The main thing about poetry is observation. In today’s world we are forced to make decisions. No body is going to ask you how much you got on that math exam. Teenagers today need to acquire capabilities for making difficult decisions. The situation created by the coronavirus pandemic reflects that: the world is changing, and we need to know how to handle uncertainty. Poetry can provide skills and develop capabilities that our younger generation will need in order to move forward,” Gutman says.
He invokes terms usually used in practices of self-improvement like mindfulness and coaching to support his argument, identifying five components that make poetry a useful tool in strengthening one’s resilience in face of the uncertainties of a changing world.
Finding meaning
People who write often tend to be drawn to specific topics and forms of writing. Finding out what you enjoy writing about might make your fields of interest clearer and more defined. “Once you know what you’re writing about, you discover what you really care about,” Gutman explains. “In my poems I can read about who I am.”
Self-awareness
Poetry allows us to tap into emotional nuances, usually gone unnoticed in the endless stream that is our consciousness. By investing time exploring hidden corners of ourselves and others, we practice observation and self-awareness, better defining ourselves as individuals and fulfilling the ancient Greek decree: “know thyself.”
Empathy
By using poetic devices like imagery, metaphors and personification, writers practice the ability of imagining different realities than their own without identifying with them. And being able to empathize is an important aspect of communicating and creating healthy relationships, Gutman notes.
Creativity
Gutman believes that the basis of creativity is imagination, and that the more one gives it expression, the stronger it gets. And poetry is certainly an art based on imagination, on the metamorphosis of words into colorful ideas and images. Without it, poetry would simply be black lines formed in a neat structure on a white page.
Intuition
Intuition is a vital aspect of writing poetry, according to Gutman. “It isn’t always voluntary and doesn’t always make sense, but there’s this inner voice telling you to pick up your pen,” he says, adding that the use of associations in poetry can especially develop one’s intuition. He also notes that intuition is vital for making tough decisions and can be useful for people in the business sector.
Combined and manifested, Gutman calls these traits earned by reading, writing and learning poetry – “poetic intelligence.” Any one of these skills, if given room to blossom, can easily go a long way in helping young people deal with both routine and serious challenges that they will surely face at one point or another. “That’s the revolution I want to bring to the education system,” Gutman says.
He adds that successful leaders require “poetic intelligence” as well. “Shimon Peres was a poet, Avigdor Kahalani, Israel’s hero, wrote poems, King David was a leader and a poet, the Prophet Deborah, and many others.”
Gutman’s fourth and latest book, What’s the Rush? (Eshkolot Poetika, 2020,) tries to incorporate these poetic values into the world of teenagers. The book’s poems were mostly inspired by encounters Gutman had with his students and children over the years and was written for teenagers in the hopes of reaching through to them, perhaps even kindling their poetic aspirations in the process.
The book’s poem “Tamar, the teacher,” tries to explain the value of observation by touching on fundamental issues in today’s classroom as Gutman sees it. But instead of focusing on the problem, the poem highlights the answer and uses the notion of observation as a comic relief to point at the underlying issue.
Tamar, the teacher
By Shuki Gutman
Translated from Hebrew by Michael Simkin
Tamar, the Geography teacher
Taught me in her way
The secrets of personal observation
About typically human creatures.
Sometimes she ordered me
To make friends with the corner of the room,
My body would turn to the center of the class,
My back would stroke the peeling wall.
While she often complained
About the Mediterranean climate
And the difficult conditions of the region,
I looked at the children of my century.
The African braids of the beautiful girl,
The flushed faces of ballgame players,
Eyes tired from reading books
And those who were sad that day.
The observations in a geography class,
The greatest punishment in the Middle East -
Sources of an abundant river for diagnosis
In the lands of the inner plains.
The punishment in this case – facing the wall – is experienced as an opportunity by the poem’s speaker, remembering his experiences as a student. As the teacher “often complained/About the Mediterranean climate,” our speaker “looked at the children of [his] century,” which resulted in “Sources of an abundant river for diagnosis/In the lands of the inner plains.”
It’s an accidental discovery, and a meaningful one as it seems. The speaker has no one to thank for his illuminating experience, certainly not the teacher Tamar. It’s thanks to simple intuition, an attainable instinct of looking up and around that leads him to find meaning. And that’s the poem’s real message to teenagers: it may be worth paying more attention to each other, rather than to your phone.
Gutman’s first book, Muted Piano was published in 2016, a short while after losing his father. Not unlike his experience in the military when facing unexpected hardship, Gutman found his answer in poetry yet again. Mourning the death of his father had strengthened his confidence in words and in their lasting effects and led him to make the decision of investing himself in “the poetic world,” alongside his career as a teacher. And he hasn’t stopped since.
These days, Gutman promotes poetry by working on a poetry anthology called “My Voice, Your Voice,” and runs a poetic group that brings together poets from across the country for monthly gatherings. He is constantly exploring new ways of introducing poetry to his students.■


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