So as a theatre teacher sitting in a PD today, I was feeling quite angry especially when all of my questions about plays and poems were not being answered. I wrote two poems about this. Here's the first:
A leveled response
A poker face
You'll never know
How my mind does race.
I sit and listen
But really don't care
Your words mean nothing
Your voice drifts on air.
What you say
Is no concern of mine
Meaning in your words
I'm struggling to find.
My mind runs
To a place far away
To a creative land
Where you have nothing to say.
People don't realize
The talents I have
Instead they want to pin me
Against a cold slab
Of standards and reasons
Core this and that
Teaching to a test
My mind is not growing fat.
My soul rebels
Against all this stuff
To be creative in here
Is proving quite tough.
I don't care about scores
Of standards to find
All I want
Is to broaden a mind.
When have we
Data based become?
When did tests and scores
Replace learning as fun?
I always hear
The arts have no place
The data's too driven
To the top it's a race.
What about a kid
With a sensitive soul
Who enters a classroom
Creativity a goal?
He is lost
In some test based shuffle
HIs mind and soul
Enter a scuffle.
The artist who finds
He has no relief
Finds that his soul
Has become quite a beast.
No one cares
In this world any more
Whether the artist can thrive
As long as he has a high test score.
The actor, artist
Musician too
Who find that his
Drive has nothing to do
With Race to the Top
Or NCLB
Terranova or Ask
Will soon be
Forced to conform
Compartmentalize his mind
Push down that creative soul
Until it, he can no longer find.
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