Category: education

Always a Teacher

Set me on the open road,
encourage me to cross borders;
I am hungry for knowledge,
to hear a higher calling.

Cannot tolerate chained-to-
chairs education, imposed
immobility, socratic hierarchy
demanding conformity

spoon-fed compliance –
am too much my father’s
daughter, born rebellious
unable to mold myself
to prescribed slots

would rather initiate
discussion, engage, listen –
let shoes emote, tell their
story, develop compassion

never felt more than a visitor
in institutions, marks adequate
but brain absent, spirit numbed –
more punishment for delinquency
than awakening.

How can we convey the future,
instill optimism in prospects,
when the language of education
is secondary to how students
communicate in real-time?

Minds are energetic, curiosity
a given, youth crave elevation,
opportunity, measure themselves
against a system defined by rows.

How can I cross this barrier
of disability, open the dialogue
to ignite passions, propel learning
to open road scenarios, encourage
minds to cross borders?

(Reposted from December, 2106 in response to The Daily Post prompt:  calling.  Teaching, I’ve always believed to be my calling – loved it passionately, until I had to give it up in 2014 due to ME/CFS)

 

A Call To Teach

They set up classrooms in malls,
call them “alternative”, cater to
those who have fallen through
proverbial cracks, teens unfit
for institutional learning…

I was wayward once, could not
value education while teenage
angst pushed me overboard –
home life too quixotic for
reasonable expectations of
comportment …

My heart reaches out
to those displaced, for whom
common curriculum does not gel –
I long to meet with them on concrete
benches, over cups of Tim Horton’s
lending a sympathetic ear…

School is not the defining moment
the last stop before our final destination;
it is a stepping stone, one of many paths
that lead to discovery, to definition,
troubled souls crave soothing…

maybe, if I could light a torch
for just one child, build a bridge
of hope, the girl in me would be
quieted, reassured, healed –
validation ensuring a future for all.

(Image: classroom.synonym.com)

Missing Lessons

No point hanging onto past –
education is not preparation
when illness decides to drop in

neither Algebra, nor Social Science
offers clues for solving the equation:
Life minus ability equals:  what?

Curriculum based on harsh realities
would instruct how to tie up loose ends,
gather what’s important, remain calm

while filling prescriptions and countless
paperwork; and how to fight for validation
when funding is fraud adverse and society

would as soon forget than support; and
how to continue to battle when good times
are confined to snapshots:  other people’s

hopeful beginnings and celebrations; and
how to push on when in the lotto of life
disability is the winning card – no certainty

of aging, vacation days no longer apply;
and how does one grieve appropriately
when no one wants to hear, project fear

and misunderstanding; cannot fathom
the depth of the daily battle – need a
curriculum of their own in compassion.

(Image: www.everydayfamily.com)

Eccentricity Counts

Professors may make strange bedfellows,
but originality does engage young minds;
ideology while exciting, repels intuition;
and doing well is not about belonging,
it is acknowledgment and reward received.

Listen to me, I am lost, begging for do-overs.
Superiority is a goal for some, while I retreat
into leisure, begin losing awareness, am an odd
gatherer, keeper of underdeveloped knowledge,
gushing creativity, and injecting limitations.

If I could meld empathy, follow unbeaten
paths, inform myself afresh, I’d be bloated
with enthusiasm, pregnant with progress,
but my outlook, like moss, is humble: I am
outcast, marginalized, insignificant…

Projecting discomfort into materialism,
may once have been healthy, now initiating
death by unconscious eating: a human sponge.
Instructing once fueled me –  my passion
eclectic, as all good teacher should be.

What remedies will persuade those who have
forgotten the way, are numbed.
What new dawn will force feed us out of this
resignation, instill pursuit of higher knowing,
ignite a quest for empowerment?

(Image from pinterest.com)

Always a Teacher

Set me on the open road,
encourage me to cross borders;
I am hungry for knowledge,
to hear a higher calling.

Cannot tolerate chained-to-
chairs education, imposed
immobility, socratic hierarchy
demanding conformity

spoon-fed compliance –
am too much my father’s
daughter, born rebellious
unable to mold myself
to prescribed slots

would rather initiate
discussion, engage, listen –
let shoes emote, tell their
story, develop compassion

never felt more than a visitor
in institutions, marks adequate
but brain absent, spirit numbed –
more punishment for delinquency
than awakening..

How can we convey the future,
instill optimism in prospects,
when the language of education
is secondary to how students
communicate in real-time?

Minds are energetic, curiosity
a given, youth crave elevation,
opportunity, measure themselves
against a system defined by rows.

How can I cross this barrier
of disability, open the dialogue
to ignite passions, propel learning
to open road scenarios, encourage
minds to cross borders?

(Image: www.abc.net.au)

Employment Dance

Doors open –
build a career,
strive for a postion
with authority, discover
new possibility, relocate,
be unique, spontaneous;
conned by
administration,
lack of status verified,
excluded by internal
friendships, soulless
searching for
personal wealth.

Opportunity to earn –
engage business space –
have the big reveal,
believe boisterous
sales pitch, advertise
ineffectively, wait on
authority; bottomline –
not as previously thought
Who’s in charge?
Where’s the value?

Need to feel useful –
corporately accepted,
recognized, social needs
addressed, maybe visited
by a president; supported
by others, a someone –
a personal worker’s
heaven.
(image: www.bizepic.com)

Learning Disabled

Really want to be gainfully
engaged, embrace learning
but disability is in charge,

like an uneducated thug,
skulking behind my back,
sneering at my attempts

to demonstrate capability.
I am slow processing,
easily distracted, socially

driven, control slipping,
botching efforts to show
potential, suspect that

disability, the hard-headed
tough guy that he is, revels
in my failure, despising me.

(image from: www.greatschools.org)

Women Are Red

Women bleed –
red blots in an otherwise
black and white world –

have learned the language,
yet feel like foreigners,
undermined by nuances;

travel this patriarchal
landscape, would-be leaders
whose compassion like blood

unsettles the ambitious,
too exhausted to play the game
corporate agendas do not align

with weary-hearted
mothers who would slow
progress to raise wholeness.

We take back seats,
submit to sermons from self-
proclaimed prophets, who mime:

words without substance,
are starving for sustenance
in a fast food, quick fix world

where harm is overlooked
in praise of mass consumption –
crave relief from the imbalance –

seek woman-only refuge
to vent our quiet rebellion,
give voice to our marginalization.

Our blood is thick, heavy,
like our passion, offensive to some
and like our power, unstoppable.

(image:  http://www.odditycentral.com)

These are Warriors

Younger women than I
are giving birth, unaware
of indifference; joyous
expectancy blotting out
smells of disinfectant,
and decay – I am invisible
to them, my daughters.

Babies they are, bringing
forth life, unripened souls,
hopeful, ignorant, unaware
that I know what violations
have planted the seeds, am
no stranger to the cruelties
of humanity, my sisters.

I may be unknown here,
but neglect is universal –
it’s brutality unremarkable –
am praying for miracles,
while the world spins, lives
losing control, and all I can
do is stand witness, Mother.

(Photo credit:  Huffington Post)

Strike Out

I would stand on my head,
call in the big leagues,
imagine fun, opportunity,

but constantly meet with
the wall of your limitations.

My desire is innocent – impish
maybe – dependable; hope to
create memorable moments,

but boredom is oppressive,
and you are shutting me out.

I am alone here, hoop jumping,
giving of myself, willing to take
ownership in this rejection play

but relationship is not one-sided
and this game piece is opting out.

th-2