Mr. Mali entertains and inspires

Slam poet Taylor Mali left the classroom more than 10 years ago, but he has never stopped teaching. Armed with an unconventional lesson plan, Mali stood and delivered before a crowd of 575 University of Northern Iowa students in Lang Hall Auditorium Tuesday night, and class was clearly in session.

Mali is perhaps best known for his poem, "What Teachers Make," an impassioned and borderline bellicose defense of the value of the teaching profession. His subjects range from love, to loss, to teaching, to proofreading.

Even his most somber pieces are interwoven with a devilish and well-timed streak of humor. Though Mali's style is a far cry from the howling and yowling of some slam poets, his poems are punctuated with witty jabs and peppered with the occasional colorful word.

"It was amazing," said Michael Pigman, a senior English teaching major. "I'd seen a few of his videos on YouTube, (but) seeing it live is always so much more intense. It's just hilarious."

Onstage, Mali looked and acted like a teacher. Dressed in khakis and a button-down shirt, he seamlessly transitioned between poems and presentation, even stopping in the middle of a poem to explain something to the audience. He quizzed the audience on the name for a song written expressly for a wedding ("epithalamium"), asking them to raise their hands.

Mali gestured and pointed and held everyone in his thrall as only a good teacher can, leaving them hanging on his every word. He read a wrenching poem that recalled his days teaching seventh-graders in a private school. The piece began with humor as he described assigning a project to his students: to build a miniature Viking ship, together, "like warriors." Unfortunately, one of his students was diagnosed with a terminal illness around that time.

The student was going to come to class for a visit after a long period of absence, but his hair had fallen out as a result of chemotherapy treatment. "Nobody stare, nobody laugh and nobody point!" Mali recited, fiercely forcing out the words. In the audience, you could hear a pin drop.

But when Tony Steinberg, the sick student, came to visit, the children in Mali's class did stare, laugh and point – at one another, because all 12 of the other students had shaved their heads in solidarity with their classmate.

At Tony's funeral too soon afterward, the classmates stood in a circle around the Viking ship, which they set aflame in honor of their fallen fellow warrior, "the soul of the brave warrior rising slowly with the smoke."

Mali segued into "What Teachers Make," lightening the mood a bit. He recalled a scene at a dinner party where a lawyer asked, "I mean, you're a teacher, Taylor. Be honest. What do you make?"

Mali imitated the lawyer's obnoxious guffaw before launching into a fiery rebuttal. He described making a C+ "feel like a Congressional Medal of Honor" and "an A- feel like a slap in the face" to students: "How dare you waste my time with anything less than your best?" he demanded.

"I make them understand that if you've got this (brains), then you follow this (heart), and if someone ever tries to judge you by what you make, you give them this (the finger)," Mali said, closing with the line that he came up with before any of the rest of the poem, "Teachers make a g--d--- difference. Now what about you?"

As one might expect, many who came to see Mali were current or future teachers, or worked in a related profession.

"I laughed a lot and there were a lot of really subtle and insightful teaching references throughout the whole thing, which really cracked me up. So I really liked it a lot," said Matt Malone, a sophomore business teaching major.

Matt Blumberg, a senior English teaching major, said Mali had "a strong passion (for teaching) that is infectious."

"It's fun to see someone who's so passionate about teaching and hopefully I'll be at that (point) too," Blumberg said.

Though she doesn't teach in a classroom, UNI alumna Sarah Michels said Mali's words resonated with her, too.

"I like how much you can identify with it. As a speech therapist, I don't work in the classroom, but I work a lot with kids," Michels said, "… (and) to know that you did a good thing at the end of the day… it's cool. I identify with it, I guess."

Chris Apling, a member of Campus Activities Board (which brought Mali to UNI), was charged with getting Mali around Cedar Falls and spent a few hours with the performer before the evening event.

"Taylor Mali is still the poet when he's not onstage. He still has the same demeanor as the poet on the stage. … He's just a real, a genuine person," said Apling, a senior political science major.

Apling said Mali "is a teacher," but is almost more like a professor in some ways than a K-12 educator.

"You can tell he's seen a lot of life, especially through his poetry," Apling explained.

When Mali left his job as a teacher to become a slam poet in 2000, he set out to inspire others to become teachers, eventually setting a goal of 1,000 new teachers inspired by his work. On Tuesday night, he announced he was only 108 people shy of that mark.

Mali offered some advice for those who are considering a career in teaching, but are unsure if they should pursue it.

"… If you are driven to it, if you are good with kids, if you can love the kids – because having them like you is not important – what is important is for you to love your students," he said. "You will be recompensed in ways that legislators don't even understand. Don't let the bastards grind you down, and don't quit in the first five years."