Poem: February 8, 2019

Education

I worry it hasn't occurred to us
that the education our children need
is not the one we've designed for them.

We aspire to teach with great efficiency
numeracy and parts of speech,
water cycles and Omaha Beach.

We've built a labyrinth- a mansion
of the measurable, a temple to the agreed-upon-
laid brick by guaranteed and viable brick.

We've drawn great and detailed maps,
a fat atlas of required knowledge,
a world both vast and pre-explored.

It's stretched across the table in two dimensions.
We accept its clean edges, its corners.
We know beyond where lie the monsters.

We train our teachers to be tour guides
with scripts and calendars and best practices.
It's best when they say together, "Look to your left

and you will see X which is an example of Y
which according to experts has 3 causes,
which are outlined in your pamphlet..."

And an exemplary teacher has a high percentage
of eyes looking left, repeating X and Y,
referring to the pamphlet, achieving student success.

And don't we stand in awe of our accomplishments,
our mighty and terrible architecture?
And aren't we relieved when the trains arrive on time?

Watch the students disembark, exhausted and lost.
Watch the teachers bored and disenchanted with the blur
behind the glass that passes and nothing to touch.

A quarter of a person's life passes in our care before
we send them forth to become the world,
to care for others and know themselves.

Am I the only one who has questions, here?