The Quilting Challenge: for every classroom

SEED Co-director Emily Style's poem envisions education through the powerful metaphor of quilting. This poem will be published in the November 2013 issue of English Journal as part of her article "Curriculum as Encounter: Selves and Shelves."

Quilts are back in fashion
needless to say

it works this way:
students bring their own cloth patches
teachers provide needles and thread

then learn so-and-so’s name
as part of the art
of classroom quilting

Watch as they practice
their stitch in time

fashioning their pieces
creating their own covering

unraveling threads
often re-stitching

in a curriculum which needles them
but also beckons their involvement
with its production of warmth

For the rank-and-file
this is no ordinary production line
rather a sewing circle
gathering regularly
across time