sun shines through winter
warming our corner booth sale
with childlike joy
Denver
Sails Up
rough waters ahead
but my blue sky school background
will keep us afloat
The Last Plane
Red hair, green eyes, tall and sure of himself, he peeks into my room, searching for a familiar face after lunch. I have seen this look before, as my students often seek their native-language counterparts.
“Who are you looking for?” I ask, the after-lunch crowds raucously meandering around our conversation.
“I am looking for you. I am a new student.” His accent is smooth and meticulous, genteel and articulate.
“Oh, OK. What’s your name?”
“Arvin.”
“Where are you from?”
“Iran.”
“Iran? … And… how did you get here??” But I have to look away because the tears are already in my eyes.
“I boarded the plane on Friday morning. I was in the last group of Iranians to come.”
I want to continue the conversation, but I can’t. I can’t because the tears will fall. I can’t because I have to teach for the next ninety minutes. I can’t because every waking moment of my life since this election, since this inauguration, have become a cycle of servitude. Of serving this need or the next, of wishing for this and receiving that, of hoping for the best and seeing the worst.
Instead I tell him where to sit and hand him a hard copy of I Am Malala. We will listen to the lilting Pakistani accent from Audible today as we continue to highlight human rights violations from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (we will highlight thirteen incidents in three chapters; we will connect media suppression and fascism and women’s rights to an education too closely to our lives; we will hear Fazlullah’s rants with an American accent).
My weekly volunteer returns from the library after a time with a group of students. She meets with my Iranian student to explain to him his role in the group as they create posters connecting Malala’s experiences to the UDHR. He fits in well and tells the group he cannot draw very efficiently, so can he please have the role of interpreting the quotation from the chapter and connecting it to the UDHR document?
He has been here for five days. He got in on the LAST PLANE.
After class, my retired-white-woman volunteer asks, “If he just got here from Iran, how come he can speak English?”
And that is when I decide.
I have to start here. Right in this moment. With this woman who drives one mile from her upscale mansion in Cherry Creek North to “make a difference.”
“Pretty much all of the students who come here learned English before they came. Usually only the refugees have interrupted schooling. But most countries start teaching English when the kids are in kindergarten.”
I swear her jaw drops ten inches. She wants to say something, but she doesn’t have the words to describe her ignorance.
“Oh…”
And now you know, I want to say. But I don’t. I don’t cry when I want to, because I have to be strong for them. I don’t tell her that Trump’s America is not my America, not Arvin’s America. I don’t tell her that the combination of students in this room represents the values of our country better than most Americans I know. That a red-headed Iranian entering my classroom five days past an executive order banning Muslims is as beautiful to me as Ziauddin’s tears in the New York Times documentary as he sees Swat for the first time in three months (which we watch at the end of class).
Instead, I say, “Thank you for your help. I’ll see you next Wednesday.”
And that is all I can do to resist.
All for today.
Cookie Crumbles
just a taste of hope
sweeter than a Samoa
my small activist
Dedicated to 1/27/17, A Day that Will Live in Infamy
For today, I met with 27 students from Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, and Iran to tell them that they probably shouldn’t leave the country or they might not be readmitted.
“Thank you, Ms., thank you for telling me.” Relief as transparent as grief in their eyes.
For today, first Trump said this about the Holocaust: “In the name of the perished, I pledge to do everything in my power throughout my Presidency, and my life, to ensure that the forces of evil never again defeat the powers of good. Together, we will make love and tolerance prevalent throughout the world.”
THEN he said this as he signed the executive order banning refugees from Muslim countries: “We don’t want them here.”
For today, I told my colleagues in our district-mandated common planning, after twenty-seven minutes of discussing Socratic seminars, student placements, and teaching methodology, “Please let your students know about the recommendation from many aids groups and human rights lawyers: students and their families should not leave the country.”
For today, the ONE DAY that a district minion came to “observe,” his title Data Culture Specialist, not a day older than twenty-five and only experience in a Teach for America charter school network, writes: “Strength: The team was considering how current events impact student lives in a meaningful way (Executive Actions). They are team most impacted by these events as they have the most ELA/Refugee students.
Next Step: Continue to push the conversation to be about instruction or student learning/outcomes.” (n.a. Source unknown)
For today, I want to push the conversation: “Do you think my INSTRUCTION is more IMPORTANT than my STUDENTS’ LIVES?
For today: Student learning outcomes? Do you think they will LEARN ANYTHING if they are deported?
For today: I share all of this at dinner in the too-crowded local pub. My husband, my daughters, ages twelve and ten.
For today: My ten-year-old replies, “Mama… he must have been a Republican.”
For today: One. Small. Win.
Real Men Are Feminists
empowered futures
begin with activism
when necessary
Make My Marade
annual Marade
frosted with ice (years without)
but now winter’s here–
in Trump’s dark shadow
we march for all we have lost,
all there is to lose.
we resist snowflakes
that try and fail to stop us
from the truth we seek
we fight the good fight
in songs, in signs, in speeches
(and one day we’ll win)
Return of the Jedi
Star Wars costume show
followed by our nation’s truth:
the stench of failure
it seeps through the stacks
into our souls’ library:
let’s check ourselves out
depression so rank
we can’t even choose a book
from our city’s shelves
soon we will rise up
upon realization
of Trumpocracy
but it will take faith
beyond what fits in a poem
to fight the Dark Side
January Delight
the snow followed us
past the children’s snowflake art
(well played fantasy)
a day of chores, work;
making plans and meeting friends
(light as white sparkles)
here rests our winter:
cat in lap, tea in the pot,
(inside outside peace)
Hope for the Holidays
caroling for hope
finding it behind closed doors
that our songs open
Step Write Up 