"When we operate from within the spirit of childhood," says Dakos, "we have our greatest power as educators."

Dakos is a reading specialist and the author of the best-selling children’s books If You’re Not Here, Please Raise Your Hand, The Goof Who Invented Homework, and The Bug in Teacher’s Coffee, all Children’s Choice Selections from the International Reading Association.

Dakos’ new book with Simon and Schuster outlines her educational theories in a surprising way. "Put Your Eyes Up Here and Other School Poems" is a fictional journey through one year in a very unusual classroom. The teacher, Ms. Roys, portrays the heart of Dakos’ teaching theories. Through imaginative play and a wide selection of unusual toys that include inflatable hands, small toilets that really flush, and flying pencils, she pulls even the most reluctant children into academic work.

This collection of short poems and plays is largely autobiographical, as Ms. Roys clearly represents Dakos herself. The positive impact of Dakos’ theories appears in the transformation experienced by the book’s leading character, a student named Penny. Penny’s learning capacity and creativity have been stunted by years of dull classroom work, but Ms. Roys’ teaching methods draw her back to the imaginative life that Dakos believes is the essence of childhood – and of effective education.

Ms. Roys has a pencil cemetery in her classroom, and the children write good-bye poems to their pencils. Hand-in-hand with writing practice, students learn life skills that will help them articulate and deal with the good-byes in their own lives.

Your Resting Place

Once you were bright, fiery and sleek,
But a million numbers made you weak.

A zillion letters on the page,
Were enough to make you age.

I lay you in this inch of space,
Forevermore your resting place.

"I visit schools all over North America to share my poems," says Dakos, "and I realize that good teachers incorporate play in their curriculum. But, in our achievement-oriented society, play is looked upon as frivolous, and it is increasingly difficult for teachers to include it in an overloaded curriculum that does not realize its value. Yet it is the most important teaching method for inspiring children to want to learn. It works with gifted and remedial students and has the capacity to revive the most discouraged learners," Dakos says. "Ms. Roys’ teaching methods show how this spirit of imaginative play and childhood itself can be used in the service of education."

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