All Politics is Local and Personal

I confess that I wouldn’t be here if things had not changed so drastically and so quickly, if I wasn’t so personally affected. I teach in a Title I high school in rural Georgia that manages to find loopholes and waivers to avoid AYP’s naughty list, and as a result, my teaching philosophy and methods have not been questioned. However, things have changed over the last month, and now, I find myself confronted with crossroad after crossroad. I find myself having to re-evaluate professional and personal beliefs I thought I had come to terms with long ago. I’m in a full-blown, midlife crisis, and I blame it all on the politics of education.

Sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler  “The Road Not Taken“

My Dilema

• I do not believe in a standardized education system, yet I’m being directed to use standardized methods of teaching, including standardized tests.
• I do not believe in the American Myth of Meritocracy, yet I know, from my own personal experiences, of the power and value of ‘hard work’ and public education.
• I do not wish to harm my students with deception, yet I could lose my job if I don’t “get on board” with and participate in the Mendacity of promoting the myth of meritocracy
• My personal and professional life would be easier and more secure if I participated in the mendacity and standardization, yet I want to do  what my ‘heart and mind’ tell me is the right thing for my students.
• I love my job and do not want to lose it, but I feel the only way to keep my job is, at best, a ruse and, at worst, the brainwashing of children.  

  
Yes, I’m at a crossroad confronting the darkness around me, and, like Simon in The Lord of the Flies, I must ask myself the difficult questions: “[Am I] the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?”

I admit it. It was mine. “The Rural Carrier Stops to Kill a Nine-Foot Cottonmouth“

Honestly, my answers make me squirm. I confess, though I was willfull, selfish and blissful in my ignorance, I have been part of the problem in education. I admit that I was quiet when I should have spoken-out, that I acquiesced and became complicit because the problems of public education had not impacted me directly. 

A Beginning

Words! I love words

When I was about 20 and still in the army, I began falling in love with words, with how they held my tongue and clenched my teeth. I learned I could camouflage myself with words and began writing poems from O.P.s. Words became all I desired, so I exited the army and entered college, and , as an English major, I discovered Wallace Stevens.

I was lulled into Stevens’ poetry because of his sounds and imagery, and it didn’t take long before I was head-over-heels for the mysterious, unnamed muse of “The Idea of Order at Key West“, of “Bouquet of Belle Scavoir“, and of “Sunday Morning“, and having heard her siren song, I read on and on … Eventually, I found “The Necessary Angel.”

“The question concerns the function of the poet today”

In Stevens’ essays, I realized my desire for words and poetry were precursors of a vocation. For me, “The Noble Rider and The Sound of Words”  and “The Figure of the Youth as Virile Poet” were clarification of my “obligations” as a poet, of my human responsibility to help others discover the imagination and the words it uses to express itself, which brings me to the point of this blog.

“Poetry is the scholar’s art.” 

I’m here as a believer in and advocate for the “inalienable right of the individual to human development.”

I’m here as a citizen concerned about the standardization of public education.

I’m here as a professional to defend my profession.

I’m here as a high school teacher who wants to help others achieve their aspirations.

I’m here as a poet.

“A Gift” 

Let this be a rose

Brought forth by trembling hands,

A single bud of crimson

Atop a green stem of eagle claws,

Let it be red unfolding,

A ceremonial Sundance

Offering enchantment,

Like the clumsy hands of a child

Cupped around the thin wings

Of a butterfly – 

Let this piercing of flesh

Be my gift to you.

“I am the truth, since I am part of what is real, but neither more nor less than those around me. And I am imagination, in a leaden time and in a world that does not move for the weight of its own heaviness.” 

A special thanks to Dr. Paul Thomas