Come fall
a new class.
New names and faces.
First day
and all are still successful.
Seating chart puts Johnny
right in front where
his troubled past recommends.
Class rules written on the board,
same for you, same for kids.
Recess and all has gone well
so off to the Teachers’ Room.
And someone, maybe you,
will roll out the teaching/farming metaphor:
“like planting a seed, watering the shoot,
cultivating it and watching it grow.”
What an awful comparison,
for growing crops
is done so hungry farmers can eat.
Teaching as a psychological form
of cannibalism?
Must be a more wholesome analogy
for the Teachers’ Room.
How about: a pebble tossed into a quiet pond
to see how far the resulting waves will go?
Or passing the baton,
maybe playing intellectual Pied Piper?
Or showing the light switch?
All too soon recess is over.
A full year minus one recess is ahead,
so go mine some minds!
Doug Minnis December 22, 2009