53/365 Teaching, The End

We spin straw into gold in these classrooms,
Turn mice into coachmen with the flick of a red pen.
We throw beans out the window
for the sake of teaching a lesson.
We know full well they are magic,
and what they'll grow into by morning.

Our schools are idyllic far-off kingdoms,
Threatened always by dragons, evil witches, and the big bad wolf.
We don't wear this armor for our health.
If the citizens only knew how frequently we defend them.

There is nobility in being beholden to the taxpayer,
Accountable to the people who expect every ending to be a happy one.
There is no honor in being reminded of this,
Having it held over our heads that we are not the fairest in the land.
We do our best to heed the advice of parents,
Stick to the path and do not stray
Leave trails of breadcrumbs for the children to follow
For as long as the sparrows will permit them to do so.
We open sealed minds with our magic words.  Open, Sesame!
Sprinkle pixie dust liberally
and dare the children to let their feet leave the earth.

We lead students to believe they actually found that porridge on their own,
Watch them sip from each bowl until they've found one that suits them best
Not too hot, not too cold.
Let them drink their fill and think they've gotten away with something.
They will leave here having sat in every chair,
Too hard, too soft.
They will know which bed of knowledge is just right
Sensitive to the smallest pea of untruth that lies beneath them.

How easily the heroes are mistaken for villains.
Our valiant deeds reduced to test scores and salaries in the local paper
Poison apples the townsfolk talk about
Shake their heads at the house of straw we have built for their children.
It will never be good enough for their huffing and puffing
Yet they refuse to give us the bricks with which to build.
Sift more lentils into the ashes
Say they'll talk about school supplies and contracts
Once we're done picking them out.

There will be no whistling while we work
Under rumors that we are asleep beneath haystacks
Allowing their daughters to kiss too many frogs
Deluding their sons with promises
of what a spoonful of sugar can really do.
Sometimes we need them to wish upon a star
If we want them to grow up right,
to become a real boy.

There is the perception
That anyone could wear that glass slipper
As well as we do, or better.:
You know what they say,
Those who can, do.
Those who can't
Write inspiring poems about how good they would be at it
If they actually did.
(I learned this from Taylor Mali)

Even clever words can not hide
That your nose is growing.
Good teachers know
When the shiny apple is poisoned.
When princess does not mean to share her dinner.
When a dog did not eat the homework.

We live the fairy tale.
Go about our heroic business
Always watching
For Grandma's eyes to be a little too big
For that unexpected prick of a spindle
But we have a job to do.
These children deserve a shot
At Happily. Ever. After.

52/365 A B C

A is for APPLE.
B is for BALL.
C is for CAT.

Now say, "APPLE"... "APPLE"

The oral method of Deaf education
Forced mimicry of sounds
To which students have no access
It wasn't always this way.

Deaf children once learned at Deaf schools
Taught by skillful teachers,
Many Deaf themselves,
Who modeled two languages and success
They signed without accents.

By those who can't agree on what ain't broke
No good thing is ever left un-fixed.

A tide of eugenics and good intentions
Carried in with it the notion
That these children are broken
And that clear articulation of sounds
Was somehow preferable to actual two-way communication and comprehension.

Children,
Now forced to sit on their hands in class,
Knuckles smacked with rulers,
For daring to speak the only language they owned
In the very school that had given their fingers voice.
Clenched fists, by day,
Hid the glow of coals still hot,
Saved them for the dark of night
Spun them into crackling poems,
Bonfire stories of true A's, B's, C's
Where A is for MYSELF and  REFUSAL
B is for PREVENT, for HANDS
And C is COMMUNICATION and CONCEPT
D, E, F, all the way to the Z of a LIGHTNING strike.

Were it not for these after-hours children
Sneaking language in their dorm rooms
Inventing new forms of poetry in a dialect
Born after the nation for which it was named.
Their budding language would have died with their parents long before its time.
A century later, American Sign Language is alive and well.
The old schools lie vacant,
Victims of modern medicine
And their own folly.
In public school classrooms,
The Deaf kid sits in the front row
A tiny computer wedged into his ear canal
Or implanted surgically into the mastoid bone in his skull
While the teacher TALKS LIKE THIS
Into the lapel microphone with dead batteries
They never bother to check.
He is the only Deaf child in his town
Somebody's mom
Who took a semester of sign class once at community college
Flails her arms uselessly at the front of his classroom
Calls herself an interpreter
And nobody knows the difference but the kid,
Who spends years learning mispronounced signs
Crammed awkwardly into English grammatical constructs
That make no sense to the eyes.

This is the child left behind.
Who will one day realize what was kept from him.
A linguistic community.
A true first language.
He is now too old to learn any language as a native
But if he still could, he would choose the one
In which APPLE doesn't start with an A.  It's an X!
BALL is the letter C!
and CAT isn't even a letter, it's an 8!

At the meetings,
They despair over his test scores,
Behavior problems,
Why is he always so angry?
Doesn't make friends.
They praise the interpreter lady,
Tell her she signs so beautifully.
The interpreter lady thinks she is signing "THANK YOU"
She signs it the way the child always does.

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