SLICE OF LIFE AND POETRY FRIDAY

 I'm participating in Slice of Life at Two Writing Teachers.
And it's Poetry Friday at Rogue Anthropologist.
So I'm double dipping.
And I don't think it's done, but it's the best I can do for now.

We've been doing state tests all week. As a literacy coach, I often administer makeup tests. This week I've worked with kids who are just coming back from illnesses, who have missed school for funerals, who couldn't test with their class for behavioral reasons.

Whenever I have to give these tests, I'm struck by our world's measures of proficiency. I teach kids who live in abject poverty, who fear daily that parents will be deported, who have really, really hard home situations, and yet these kids still smile and persevere and find hope and joy. And yet there success is measured by tests that often label them as partially proficient or unsatisfactory. And we as teachers, who wade daily into this fray, are told, again and again, that our efforts are less than adequate.

As I work with these kids,  and with an amazing, giving, deeply caring group of colleagues, I can't help but measure whether we, as a society, truly have any grasp of what really matters. That's where this draft comes from.

"Proficient?"

Sparkling brown-eyed 

eight-year-old

happily assisting the secretary

counts notices with a rubber-tipped finger

we eat lunch together

and I choke on my turkey sandwich

when she tells me

she would have been here yesterday

except she threw up in the car

on the way to school 

and her mom made her go back home.

This is her first experience

with our state's test

and she is 

oh so serious

works diligently

for ninety minutes

And I wonder

she who has learned

to give her all

to serve her community

to bring joy into the world

is she not 

already 

proficient ?

Nine-year-old

finished testing 

jabbers excitedly

over a dinosaur book

"Los dinosaurios,"

he exclaims to his friend. 
"No me gustan los  

él tiene dientes grandes  

se come a la gente.  

Me gustan los herbívoros mejor."*

And I wonder

He who finds such delight 

who has learned awe

and perhaps a little fear

 

is he not 

already 

proficient?

 

Sweet ten-year-old

nose red and chapped 

kleenex piled

in front of her on the table

she who lives on the border

of a two language world

crossing back and forth

between el idioma de su familia

and English, that confusing currency 

of life in the United States

someday that daily crossing 

will be effortless

but right now

the journey is still difficult

and  I wonder

about this brave 

little border crosser

who  perseveres so valiantly

is she not 

already 

proficient ?

Nine-year-old

tough cookie

behavioral issues

can't test with the rest of her class

she hangs sideways and upside down

off the hard wooden chair

tells me about 

the forbidden hot cheetoes 

hidden in her locker

for an after school snack

plays eeny meeny miney moo

to select her answers

tells me that she can behave however she wants

no one can call her mother

because the phone has been disconnected

the meal that life has handed her

has come on a chipped and broken plate

and still she plays tic tac toe 

and smiles when I read her funny poems

and I wonder

she of the resilient spirit

who has had to find her own way

who has not totally given up

and laid down in the road

to let life run her over

is she 

not already

proficient?

Eleven-year-old

who missed yesterday's test

tells me with welling eyes

that she had to attend a funeral

since August

she has been grieving

the cancer-riddled grandmother

who used to paint her granddaughter's toenails

take her shopping

shape floury dough

into round tortillas

and I wonder 

she who knows 

how to love deeply

and lose much

is she 

not already

proficient?

the seventh grader

asks me the Monday

before the test

if I have read 

her practice prompt about 

people we admire

"i really tried"

she says

"it's one of the best ones I have written"

I dig through the pile

find hers, read it aloud

as she stands silent before me

her hero is Demi Lovato

because Demi fought back

from self destructive issues

sought help

institutionalized herself 

and now speaks out to teens.

I have watched 

this seventh grader 

walk a similar lonely path

for eighteen months

she seems 

have found a temporary peace

is doing a little better

is she 

not already

proficient?