I Hear America Singing (Originally) by Walt Whitman: A Classic Poem Hijacked (Which is to Say,we’re Adding Those Whose American Carols Have Been Historically Excluded)

Abstract

This collaborative autoethnographic poem served as the introductory assignment for a graduate course called Freire and American Education. Students were scheduled to read Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing,” to consider carefully how the poet was redefining “America” and by default the “American,” taking note of how Whitman meant his poem to change the trajectory of how the Great Experiment should from that point forward unfold. We were studying Freire in the U.S., though, and so the scope of “America/American” as it pertained to the class was limited: “How do U.S. educators make do with him?” In response to Horstman's question, Saldaña admitted that he’d originally intended for us to explore how Freire and Macedo (1987) theories on education could fit (or not fit) education and educators in the U.S. This brief discussion led to a similarly important question: “How do we mean American in the U.S.? Who makes the cut, and who doesn’t? Who decides?” The challenge for the class: “As we go about our daily lives, who do we know continues to be ignored? Who erased? Who discarded?” In this sense, we sought, like Whitman, to witness and to testify both.