CHARACTER COUNTS!: After reading your classic poem “What Teachers Make,” a student-teacher once said to you, “That has to be the greatest job in the world!” Is teaching the greatest job?
TAYLOR MALI: There is no greatest job in the world. Or rather, there are many. The greatest is the one you feel honored to have; the one you look forward to going to every morning. That said, people who don’t teach don’t get to see the immediate effect that their actions have on the future.

CC!: A student once told you, “You really love doing this, don’t you?” What percentage of teachers do you think love teaching?
MALI: I don’t know, but probably more than I think. The secret is connecting what you do with who you are. You can’t be one kind of person in your private life and someone else when you teach. Students sense that.

CC!: In another poem about teachers, “Miracle Workers,” you wrote: “Education is the miracle; I’m just the worker.” Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
MALI: I don’t think so. Imagine a teacher saying, “I am the miracle and education is my worker.” That’s putting the credit in the wrong place. The divine moment in education is when someone gets it. If you’re in the right place at the right time, you can see it in their eyes. The teacher may assemble all the ingredients and light the fire, but the miracle is the brew and the steam. It would be wrong to take credit for that.

CC!: On your website you refer to “America’s love/hate relationship with the teaching profession.” What did you mean?
MALI: Is it possible to admire a profession and hold it in contempt? Everyone agrees in theory that teachers should be paid more, but no one seems too concerned about doing anything about it. They’re only teachers after all.

CC!: Why don’t you like No Child Left Behind?
MALI: It assumes all children are the same and learn the same way. But they don’t. It shifts the teacher’s focus to the slowest kid in class. Entire schools are being penalized because some students need extra help.

CC!: In the 1950s, academics supplanted character development as the educational priority of our nation’s school system. Was that good or bad?
MALI: I’ll bet they thought it was good at the time. In retrospect, it’s been disastrous.

CC!: Then define educational utopia.
MALI: A system in which every student receives a quality education – with the teachers and resources necessary – and every parent feels his or her tax dollars are being spent wisely and fairly.
(Ed: And we would add character education!)

CC!: You debuted your performance poetry at a strip club called The Flamingo Exotic Dance & Catering Lounge. Would your poetry have turned out any differently if you’d started in a convent?
MALI: I would still be writing the same poetry because I’ve always kept my audience in mind. It’s the job of any poet to have at least a 20-minute set of poetry ready to present to any audience.

CC!: You once said, “I love geometry. All poets do.” What did you mean?
MALI: Poetry is about creating images using specifics that are widely accessible. Geometry is the reverse: universal laws that govern shapes and how they can be applied to specific examples. Poets don’t have heads for numbers. But shapes, yes.

CC!: Poet Ralph Waldo Emerson said genius is believing what is true for you in your heart is true for all men. You said, “I want to be a genius in the eyes of Emerson.” What would he think of your poetry?
MALI: Emerson would love me if he heard me, but probably dismiss me as vulgar if he just read me. He’d tell me to experience nature more directly (which I should), try to open people’s hearts more (which I should), and meditate more (which I should). I’d tell him to have another beer (which he should).

CC!: Who was your most unforgettable student?
MALI: I wrote a poem called “Tony Steinberg: Brave Seventh Grade Viking Warrior” about a kid who died of cancer. The boy that was based on was unforgettable. Two weeks into his first year, he was already escorting prospective new students around. He was a gentleman.

CC!: What was the most valuable thing a student ever taught you?
MALI: That it’s more important for me to love my students than it is for them to like me.

CC!: What was your most satisfying ah-hah moment as a teacher? As a poet?
MALI: I once had a moment teaching math that I’ll never forget. Robert was having trouble understanding the Identity Property of Zero, which says any product will be zero if just one factor is zero. When he finally got it, he said, “This changes everything!” As a poet, I knew I’d struck gold when I wrote the line, “It is not enough these days to simply question authority. You have to speak with it, too.”

CC!: We loved your analogy: “Teaching isn’t about filling a bucket; it’s about lighting a fire.” Could you expound on that?
MALI: Isn’t that a great quote? It’s Yeats. Teaching is not about pouring knowledge into something until it’s full; it’s about starting a process that will continue on its own.

CC!: Another of our favorites is: “I know the difference between questions to answer and questions to ask.” What’s the difference?
MALI: I once had a teacher in graduate school, Dr. Jerome S. Dees, who never asked a question he knew the answer to. That meant he spent a lot of time thinking of questions to bring to class. I found that very honorable. Often the best answer to a student’s question is, “What do you think?” Questions indicate places in the brain that are smoking. My job as teacher is to coax that smoke into a flame – and then get out of the way.

To learn more about Taylor Mali and how you can book a workshop at your school or in your community, visit his site: www.taylormali.com