Cleveland based writer Quartez Harris spent six years as a teacher including five years spent teaching second graders in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.
Harris has written a book of poetry based on his time as a teacher at CMSD. He says during his time teaching he witnessed both the hardships students faced but also saw their humanity and vibrance.
In honor of Black History Month, Quartez joined the Rebel Readers Book Club at Loganberry Books in Larchmere to read and discuss poems from this award-winning poetry collection, “We Made It to School Alive.”
He discussed the book on Ideastream Public Media's the "Sound of Ideas.
He joined the “Sound of Ideas” on Feb. 29 to talk about the work with host Jenny Hamel.
Harris explained the title of the book. He says it came from an experience he had with a student who normally walked to school. One day, the student asked Harris to call his mother to pick him up. He told Harris that his brother had not come to school that day and all he heard on his school route were gunshots.
“So, I got a sense that his brother was, someone who particularly ensured that he felt safe, you know, and the fact that his brother wasn't there, I felt like he did not feel, like he was in a safe space. So that really struck me. And it also developed my empathy, you know, for kids who, wrestle with things that I have no direct experience with,” Harris told Hamel.
You can hear more about the book and Harris’ teaching experience and how that impacted his writing by clicking on the “listen” button at the top of the page.
Guests:
-Quartez Harris, Author