The end of my teaching career.

[labelleizzy]

it didn't feel like being crabs in a bucket
too lonely an experience for a plural metaphor.


though definitely there was a dragging down experience:

• anything exceptional
  
• anything experimental
  
• anything that broke the status quo

I expected we'd be raising each other up
not pulling someone back to toe the line
I expected us all to reach for the stars
not speak only when spoken to

I didn't realize my teaching internship
landed me in a diploma-mill
churning out inferior product
with very few value-add options

Should I have known better?
I didn't.
I have always been too trusting.

I was sent into the trenches
to build bridges with cardboard
and I was guilty when the bridges failed.

when I asked for lumber they said
"There's no budget for that
You'll have to find that yourself."
And some of them smirked.

I was a hero
but I couldn't see it
all I could see was
muddy trenches and disrespect
for miles in every direction

and when I was discharged
grateful and ashamed
I took my papers and went away
glad and sorrowful
that I was too soft for these wars.

I tend my garden on this faraway hillside
watch the struggle from a distance
climb the cliffs seeking perspective -
and maybe some new way to stop the war.


(this is my entry for this week's therealljidol.)

Comments

[whipchick.livejournal.com]

This was a really gorgeous poem about a horrible situation. Great language - I loved "value-add options" and "too lonely an experience for a plural metaphor."

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

thank you, particularly for the specific feedback on phrases you found good. *nodding*

I miss them, you know? the kids? But you have to climb over so much bullshit just to do the actual teaching, you have so many impediments that other people intentionally put in your way... and you just don't always get the training, tools, supplies or support to Do The Work Right.

I'm good at the teaching, the relationships with the kids, the finding out what they need to learn and helping them learn it. But goddamn if that wasn't an even lonelier gig than librarianing.