Life is precious
Every life is precious
Every soul must be allowed to learn .
to think, interpret, analyze, create -
To become –
this is how value and worth are fortified and measured  -
This is the measure of a civilization.
The worth of every soul must be seriously considered,
They must be respected, nurtured, loved
Enough to instill in them respect, responsibility, and a vision -
A vision for their futures that includes the consideration of
themselves, others, and the world.
But the bureaucrats in education,
The talking heads,
The politicians, the heads of corporations, the union leaders
don’t care about the children, their instruction,
or their teachers
They claim “zero tolerance”……
They say children will not be left behind
They say there is a race to the top
They say they will get rid of ineffective teachers.
But you must know it’s not ineffective teachers -
It is a system that is broken
because
The focus is money, numbers, scores
The focus is politics
The focus is on how they look to the public
and to the  other politicians:
Education?
It’s a sham, it’s a con game -
And the children, especially children of poverty,
Don’t know, don’t realize, have no idea
How their education is being perverted
How the focus is twisted
How their futures are being stolen
How they are  being left behind
They are being left behind,
They are being left behind the children of other countries whose
citizens and leaders know what is needed to perpetuate
a cycle of  betterment, a promise in the future.
But our children?
They are being allowed to wither
They are unwatered plants
They are starving multitudes
They are the inmates in the asylums
They are the tail that is wagging the dog
They are Simon and Ralph and Piggy
They are the victims of a shipwreck
Abandoned on an island where there are no rules
Abandoned and left to evolve in a place where they are allowed
to make the rules
Where they are always right and their teachers are always wrong -
And like any ship in a storm without a beacon
to guide the way
They are becoming a population, a generation -
generations now
Of people who are adrift -
They don’t understand why they don’t succeed.
All they know
Is that they’re not succeeding
Things aren’t working out
The world is not forgiving
Real life doesn’t enable them -
The way they were in the institutions in which they
were “educated”
To make hundreds of mistakes
to disregard others
to fail and still “succeed”
Real life doesn’t enable them to be inconsiderate
of  themselves, others, and their environment
and  still
create strong families and strong sustainable societies.
Real life is not making sense.
So to ease their minds of the nonsense
Some have come to value
drinking, getting high,
Going beyond a place
where anything makes sense
They dull their senses
Or they hurt themselves and others
Because the idea that life is precious
That every life is precious
Including their own
Is but a foreign concept
It’s an alien sensibility
It’s “Greek” to them
Because no one has valued them enough to ensure
That they have truly and deeply learned
to value themselves, others, and their world
Their parents didn’t stay the course, didn’t sacrifice enough to
ensure their children’s survival.
Their teachers were beaten down, demoralized, belittled, stifled,
questioned, criticized, ignored, choked, bound and gagged
so that just a fraction of what they could have imparted
could get through,
So that beacons became flickering candle flames choking for air
to stay alit.
What is “future”?
There is no big picture –
There is only today, now, this moment
And “now” is miserable
Their spirits are crushed,
Their hopes are dashed,
Their dreams are shattered,
And only a few of them
climb out of the quagmire, struggle out of the confusion
And find the way.

© Cynthia Fioramonti 2013