Why is Maya Angelou a legendary icon?







As an educator I wish I could use words as powerfully as Maya Angelou. She weaves tales that can be straight forward (tell it from the hip) that there is no misunderstanding her meaning, which the children love. In her adult literature, messages are shared symbolically, beautifully so, and her book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings she be required reading for any student of life.

Ms. Angelou's values are solid; she encourages young people to be strong, stand up for their beliefs, to be honest, understand their fears, follow their dreams and be the power behind change.

In our libraries we have a handful of her work. The elementary has a wonderful book called 'Life Doesn't Frighten Me'.

My hope is our students of the future will continue to be inspired, empowered and enthralled by her words.

Life Doesn't Frighten Me
by Maya Angelou

Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hall
Life doesn't frighten me at all
 
Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud
Life doesn't frighten me at all
 
Mean old Mother Goose
Lions on the loose
They don't frighten me at all
 
Dragons breathing flame
On my counterpane
That doesn't frighten me at all.
 
I go boo
Make them shoo
I make fun
Way they run
I won't cry
So they fly
I just smile
They go wild
 
Life doesn't frighten me at all.
 
Tough guys fight
All alone at night
Life doesn't frighten me at all.
 
Panthers in the park
Strangers in the dark
No, they don't frighten me at all.
 
That new classroom where
Boys all pull my hair
(Kissy little girls
With their hair in curls)
They don't frighten me at all.
 
Don't show me frogs and snakes
And listen for my scream,
If I'm afraid at all
It's only in my dreams.
 
I've got a magic charm
That I keep up my sleeve
I can walk the ocean floor
And never have to breathe.
 
Life doesn't frighten me at all
Not at all
Not at all.
 
Life doesn't frighten me at all.


Comments

Post a Comment

Sharing is caring! If you have a comment or feedback, I'd love to hear it.

Popular posts from this blog

Note-Taking: Print vs. Digital

Image
As a one to one iPad school, our students are certainly mobile learners and as educators, we are navigating the waters of what is best for our students in terms when should learning use digital tools vs. old school. From my latest dabblings into Twitter blogs such as Jennifer Gonzalez's fabulous post on note-taking  where she expounds the virtues of sketch noting but also has a word of caution for us sailing the digital waters in that the research against digital note-taking is young. Her post is definitely worth reading and it has me reflecting on my own practice as a teacher librarian who over the last couple of weeks has taught both sketch note-taking and digital note-taking. My recent exploration in a Twitter book club which is reading Maryanne Wolf's "Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in the Digital World" provides an interesting insight in all the different ways as mature learners we are reading the text and taking notes. For myself, I'm using my phone
Read more

Critical Thinking Skills and the Common Core

Image
Book Clubs are one of my favourite parts of my role, it's great to sit down and chat with the kids and get down to a deeper level. As any teacher will tell you, kids will always surprise you with where their thinking goes and the connections or insights they can make. Being a Teacher Librarian and Literacy Coordinator has encouraged me to examine the  Common Core  standards more closely and how it meshes with our library standards, which are a marriage of the   ALA , the  ISTE / NETS  plus a few others.  For years I've used good old ' Blooms Taxonomy ' to help me with activities for my reading workshop so naturally I used it when planning my books clubs.  As I was perusing the Common Core standards I was rather surprised by how limited the standards were in terms of critical thinking skills. I was running a workshop about books clubs and made a quick keyword chart based on the Blooms Taxonomy Rose and CC standards. What I found was that there were plenty of standards in
Read more