truth

For Change’s Quake

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this day, three years back:
 an unfair observation
 on a testing day.
 
 i thought i was done;
 trying to be good enough
 was just not enough
 
 and now? full circle–
 a grapevine request to see
 my expert teaching
 
 from a district head
 who saw just minutes of us
 (speaking for us all).
 
 now he’s bringing guests
 to show others how it looks
 to teach ELD
 
 (the irony stings
 with my facebook memory–
 a harsh reminder)
 
 but all things must change
 from weak saplings to gold leaves
 that have brought me home
 
 

Case of the Mondays

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because it’s Monday
 the alarm sucks, kids are bored,
 and fall won’t happen–
 
 the classroom burns hot
 from a boiler turned on
 two weeks too early
 
 and everyone thinks
 it’s a holiday today,
 so here i sit. wait
 
 at the Jiffy Lube
 with the rest of the world
 panning for oil.
 
 this is white privilege.
 this is American life.
 black gold that burns all.
 
 
 

This Pussy Will Save Us!

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it’s a dark world
 when a candidate’s words sting
 women worldwide
 
 i cannot hear more.
 i just want my girls’ freedom
 from this dark world.
 
 i want that sweet love
 that comes from kitten cuddles.
 and no more of Trump.
 
 

And Then I Remember

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 This. This is why I teach. For three years she’s been in my class. She has gotten married. Had a baby. But she still can’t decode words. She still struggles with basic sentences. I know she has more going on in her mind than Bambara and Mali and motherhood, but I haven’t found a way to reach this girl. I haven’t been able to communicate with her in a way to help her understand. But “reliving” 1880s farm chores today, she said, “I got this. We do this in my country.” And today, today, today, she was the best at something. This. This is #whyiteach
 
 

Short This

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ten years ago, as a young teacher,
 i would have killed to have such a flawless lesson.
 today?
 one component makes me feel like a failure.
 ask.
 ask why teachers leave this profession in droves.
 why we spend hours collecting fake data points to try to prove ourselves.
 why every damn day they must be
 interacting as if their intelligence
 could not be shown in another way.
 
 ask.
 ask.
 screw the introverts,
 the six weeks prior of building up talk,
 of transition handouts and forced verbal responses and
 Socratic seminars.
 this day, this day when i have them
 writing more sentences in one period
 than they’ve written in their entire
 school careers,
 i am judged as
 not even approaching,
 not even close to being good enough?
 
 Ask.
 i’ll tell you why.
 because with all the hoops and all the hopes and all the reasons i came into this career,
 some days,
 rainy days like today,
 dreary and plagued with doubt,
 it sure as hell feels more like
 an unsatisfactory career
 than i feel like an unsatisfactory teacher.
 
 

Tuesday, Taught

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the kid argument
 that plagues my mornings and nights
 chips away my soul
 
 
 

Bites and Pieces

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somewhere between the data crunch
 that swallows all planning time,
 the tech issues that chew up a third of every class,
 the common planning that gnaws into bitching about work,
 emailing counsellors about kids who’ve bitten off more than they can chew,
 grading grammar that nibbles away time with my own kids…
 
 there’s a teacher waiting,
 the entrée of this piecemeal,
 ready to share the most delectable taste
 of what this world asks and offers.
 
 
 

Freedom Has Its Price

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the raw emotion
 that floods my writing fingers
 has been gone this year
 
 (i await new juice
 to pump up my active voice
 like a sober drunk)
 
 
 

Bricklaying

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

yesterday we learned about sod
 and homesteaders’ dreams being trampled by wind and hail and no water
 and how they were tricked into
 settling on free land.
 
 nothing is free.
 
 how they built brick by sod brick–
 tiny houses not much taller than themselves,
 and posed in front with shovels on the roof,
 no time to take them down for the picture–
 for what if it rained, or a snake crept in?
 
 yesterday i thought i was a teacher,
 and they were learning from me,
 my immigrant students building up their vocabulary
 brick by decoded brick.
 
 nothing is ever what it seems.
 
 today they entered and i asked them to write:
 describe challenges when you moved to a new place.
 
 and with the new words fresh on her tongue, she told me:
 just like the homesteaders,
 my family had to move to a new camp
 and my father had to build a sod house,
 no taller than that one in the picture.
 
 and so my student taught today’s lesson:
 one hundred fifty years later,
 we are still making bricks
 instead of trying to break them.
 
 
 

Map My Classroom

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if you made the choice
 to love and welcome, not hate
 the world would change