This is a stop.
But only a brief one.
Long journeys
Pre-school.
Kindergarten.
Elementary school.
Secondary school.
One bachelor’s degree.
Two bachelor’s degrees.
And finally school feels finished.
So we will celebrate as you don the cap and gown,
walk across a stage,
accept the diploma.
We’ll snap the photos and be glad
This is a stop in the educational journey
But soon it will be your own class room,
filled with your students,
and soon you’ll realize,
your education is just beginning.
You cannot make me do this work!
This class is dumb and you’re a jerk.
I will not hand in a single paper
You cannot make me do it later.
Hey, our report cards have arrived
HE FAILED ME? (insert dramatic sighs)
I hate this school! Look at this report, see-
how all the teachers clearly hate me!
Don’t tell me that they can’t give credit
unless there’s work for them to edit.
Don’t tell me if I don’t show what I can do
then they have nothing to give them a clue.
None of this is my fault, you shrew!
I’m quitting school, so screw each and every one of you!
.
(This has terrible scansion. I apologize)
For years I’ve been waiting to be in this place
where creativity, exploration, and delight for the job
make every day a fulfillment of what I wanted it to be
Where traces of our joy leak from the doors and windows
Where faces laugh and there is genuine care and knowing,
so going the extra mile feels like walking home,
because each of us belongs.
Tonight,
we’ll laugh until tears streak our cheeks
and remember all those moments
that made this a special place.
But beneath the laughter
will be the melancholy knowing
that with these leavings
we are left to try to rebuild something new.
I suppose we’ll be okay,
but I can’t help but wish you’d stay.
.
.
.
(End of the school year. Staff leaves. New staff arrives. Some years it’s just so fabulously synergistic that it is particularly depressing to see the end).
Guest instructor
releases class without permission
Students delighted to wander the halls
bounce balls
study their phones
while the supervisor
looks around the class room,
alone.
It’s awkward
all this repeated death.
Everyone has the solution
to remove the trouble maker
Everyone has a special skill
that will do the necessary damage.
How would you…?
Count down.
3, 2. 1.
You could…
From every department
something new.
Murder is not hard to do
if it imaginary, and there’s
not practical follow-through.
.
.
I am presently writing a collection of short stories set in a high school. The staff at my school keeps coming up with suggestions about the next murder. It’s been quite entertaining! I had no idea that apparently all teachers can come up with a scary death related to their subject area in under 3 seconds. How about you? My husband, (a Youth Probation Officer…) is appalled. lol
UPDATE: This project became Murdering Mr. Edwards and was published by Coffin Hop Press April 2018 https://coffinhop.com/crime/murdering-mr-edwards/
Haunted
Full days.
Wishing
Spinning
Devouring.
Turned inside out.
There was a rainbow.
.
.
This was a poetry exercise I created for my class today-
The prompts by line were
I am…
I have…
3 -ing verbs
I feel…
I wish…
I got some really interesting pieces! First we did this as a class activity, rolling the paper over and trading with someone new for each line. Then we shared the results. Finally, they created their own from stratch.
We are in a golden land:
A singular moment in time.
Everything glows.
We are our best
You are your best
We have created something beautiful,
something brilliant,
something ephemeral
that we wish to hold,
to savour,
to celebrate.
All we can to do is notice
this golden moment
and bask in the glow
until it’s faded away.
All we can do is be thankful
we are here.
.
.
This is dedicated to my colleagues at ERS. We have such an amazing school, full of laughter and community, but the cuts to funding mean that some of what makes us amazing will shortly end.
There are so many moments like this in our lives. It can happen when we come together with like-minds at a conference or festival, for example. Theatre productions are usually like this. We come together and magic happens. We glory at what we are part of, knowing that a component of its beauty is that it will not last, and hoping that while it exists, it makes a difference to those we touch.
Everyone thinks they’ve been bullied.
Everyone has had someone say something mean
been called a rude name
felt misunderstood
felt completely unseen
felt left out of the game.
Growing up means learning that not everyone thinks you’re great.
Growing up means knowing you’ll get called out when you’re weird.
Social correction.
Don’t be so intense, trying to fit everyone inside your fence
If they’re just being nice, don’t make them want to slice
their wrists rather than interact with you
Social rejection
is a natural reaction to those things you do.
Social conversation
starts out small, don’t demand their all
Everyone has met the kid that’s on the bullhorn
the irritating thorn who blames everyone for the scorn
he invites himself. If you want deep contact
don’t start combat if interaction contracts.
If you want a friend
Be a friend.
The end.
.
.
A few years ago, I was overheard a conversation between a Special Education teacher and a new student on the autism spectrum who was visiting the high school in preparation for attending the following year. She explained to him that in high school, if he was doing something inappropriate as a grade 8 student with poor social skills, a grade 12 would call him on it, and that wasn’t bullying, that was social correction. It was probably the most effective way for him to realize his own responsibility for the irritations of others; social correction was an enlightening concept for him. There’s a line here. Some behaviour is not appropriate! It’s important that bullies receive just as much social correction as ‘victims’ do. “We don’t treat each other like that” goes both ways. To other students, the student in question was a bully, in the way he monopolized the class room with irrelevant questions or self-indulgent narratives. He impacted them negatively, and they retained the right to tell him he needed to be quiet. He responded better to students than teachers giving the same message. What do you think? Is there such a thing as ‘social correction’ or is any negative feedback just a form of ‘bullying?’
Hovered over the computer
you groan about how you’ve been screwed up
by school schedules that don’t let you take
the courses you need to graduate.
Something from grade nine,
another from grade ten,
a couple from grade eleven,
how can you fit it in twelve?
School’s fault.
Not your fault, of course.
Never your fault
for not coming to class,
for not doing your work,
for not taking advantage of offers to help
for not being respectful of your peers
for not accepting support,
for not passing the courses.
One or two (or three or four)
missed credits each year.
It’s the school’s fault.
Of course, it is.
Everything is hard for you.
Why?
Why?
Why?
You strike the question,
a damning indictment.
I will tell you,
though you won’t hear:
This is why:
Because you don’t see that
you choose.
You choose
to work.
You choose
to fail.
You choose.
Until you choose
to be responsible
for every choice,
to admit you failed because you chose
not to work,
not to accept help,
not to accept the consequences of
your choices,
life will always
seem unfair.
It’s not life that’s unfair.
It’s you who is refusing
to own your reality.
Accept responsibility for yourself.
What are you afraid of?
Be!
Shawn L. Bird 