Breathe By Molly Weber
You’re going to forget student names.
Your students will glare and grumble
then promptly call you “Miss” again.
Someone will break the copy machine
when you are ten copies short and the printer
has no ink what-so-ever.
Your car will decide to break down
at the same time as your significant other’s
and you are due at school. Or your dog
will contract a fear of kenneling
and a passion for the cat’s food. The other dog –
the one you love the most – needs dental care
you can afford and is going blind slowly, his eyes
clouding more each day.
You KPTP will come due.
No matter how much you plain,
how well you designed your perfect lesson,
and the amount of reading you consume, you
will mess up a lesson plan. If your students
ignore you and digitalize their entire life
by the whims of Twitter,
you’ll go to an interview and realize you forgot
everything you ever knew about standards
philosophy and methods
– educational vocab,
There’s an old story of a rabbit scared of a wolf.
He stays in his burrow under a tree, he pokes
his head out to eat clover, but ever vigilante
and never far, and his clover grows scarce.
The patient, wise wolf waits and bides his time.
A storm comes and lightning rips and burns the tree
the rabbits home is exposed and he freezes
in fear. The rabbit fed the wolf that night.
So here’s my take, be afraid and be anxious
but do. Act. Be the patient and wise predator
as well as the scared prey.
Taste success in making this far in school
getting your placement and students
enjoy the wild ride.
It’s almost over.
Loved the poem Molly! Many of the experiences you talk about, we've all had as well. I especially feel your pain about the copiers. It seems that they are always broken when you need them the most. Or they jam every 2 copies you need to make. The part that you talk about job interviews also resonated with me. I think that is my greatest fear. We have spent 4 years, or more, studying the theorists, methods, and practices, but when it comes time to show all of that off in an interview, what if it all disappears? Your little folk tale was neat. Did you come up with it yourself? I like the lesson it teaches. It's okay to be scared, but we must also be patient. Not everything will come easy. There are still educators who have been at it for years who may not have all of the answers. Although, I'm not sure I'd want to be in the rabbits situation! And your last line, it's almost over. Well graduation is coming soon, but our adventure is far from over! I feel like as an educator each day is a roller coaster! But we need to make the best out of the downs so we can appreciate the ups we get to experience. Great job, Molly!
ReplyDeleteMolly, I loved this poem. I just experienced the incident with the copy machine. It threw me 20 minutes off schedule. I've been a victim of many of the other incidences as well. Teaching is certainly one of those professions where we need things to go accordingly, but oftentimes they do not. It is true that they say a teacher can never be too prepared. You are right in suggesting that it is OK for us to become overwhelmed at times. Especially now that it's beginning to seem as though so many things are closing in on us at once. With an upcoming interview I am now nervous that I will suddenly forget my philosophy and the standards and everything else I have learned over the years.
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