When I was a boy, the castles of education
soared impossibly large: Brick-laid with Blake, mortared
with Marx, wound round-about with subsidized ivy, rooted
in the 17th century.

And me, just me, on two legs, from 1981.

The flickering incandescence of rebellion started in
these fortressed halls; ideas more snapped than volleyed, until
at the end of our emotional tether, we society on our pale legs,
we sure did fall to a gust of reason.  

Emotion pounded at the walls in every century; and minds, fortified with logic and stoney fact, beat back, beat down, beat away the
Crying, yelling minds. For tears do not make progress.

I was tender, careful, deferential in my youth—an idealist without ideas; merely the powder keg of emotion lurking somewhere beneath my epithelial smarts. Ready and willing to rain against the parapets of education with unsightly feeling.

And I stood, in my academic frock, at the feet of the great hall of learning. And I wondered if my legs could stand it.

Is it any wonder I was raised to be an intellectual?

Sit right down in your seat, please
        Raise your hand to speak, please
        Get a pass to leave, please
I need all attention on me, please
                Revolution is over, please,
        Obedience is key, please
                There’s nothing wrong anymore, see
                Look at these 3rd world countries, see
                Be proud of where you were born, see
                We are perfectly free, see
Be silent and listen to me, free
                Migration will be to be stopped, free
                The leader can pardon himself, free
                Women in positions of power, free
                Hate is perfectly legal, free
        You can protest as well, free
        You have the power of speech, free
Don’t talk over the teacher, please
Don’t talk over the teacher, please
         I know better than you, see
        We control your life, see
        We are building the future, see
        We are the best in the world, see
Be silent and listen to me, please

As long as you’re rich and white,  
free.

Fighting on the front lines
With red pens
For creativity,
For independent thought,
For common sense
Not Common Core

This is a battle in a bureaucratic war we’re losing
Keep pushing and shoving against an impenetrable wall
But we’re only foot soldiers, not actually giving orders

Kids look down on us and they ask,
“Will this be on the test?”
And say,
“Get out of my face.”

Here’s what I wonder: Why is “mistake” a forbidden word?

Taught by parent(s) to resist.
These are Kids who fail to create
But recite, recall, and retaliate

School is no longer a safe haven
Testing, testing, 1-2-3 hundred murdered students, teachers
Safety off and then off
And
Still off

Hanging by a thread and losing the grip a little more every day

Following the curriculum map to X marks the standardized test.

We dig and
                  Dig and
                                 Dig
For the buried treasure trove of teaching magic. The legitimacy and respect our careers deserve. The money, the time, the love, the support.

But it’s buried under so much testing and red tape, and so    

We fail.

It seems that the American education system values
A's on tests and higher rankings more than
The mental health of the students
who there would be no high rankings
Or A's on tests without.

Everyday I'm trying to lift myself up
Because I see myself as a
horrible, gross, ugly, aggressive,
worthless, useless, clingy, hell-bound person.
I know I am not a completely good person,
But I know that I don't want others to
Feel like I do.

No one should have to feel like
Everyday will come to nothing and
That friends won't miss you and
That people will get over you at some point and
That it wouldn't matter if you killed yourself
Because you don't make a difference.

I want to be there to lift others up
In areas where I can't lift myself and
Just let them know that
It's okay to not be okay, that
Someone loves you and
I will always be one of those people, that
I'll be there even if no one else is, that
If it's 2AM and you're suicidal that
You call me or some kind of hotline
And we'll get this sorted out together.

11% of adolescents will have developed depression
by the time they turn 18.
That is not okay.
Students are reported to Guidance
when something is amiss.
Guidance counselors are there to
help with scheduling and possibly developing
academic and social skills.
They are not knowledgeable about mental health,
and lots of times teens with depression
interact with people less and
as a result lack crucial social skills for
getting jobs that fit the academic goals that
we're told matter so much that
we think that sometimes the letter grades
on paper matter more than the student
who studied for hours to
earn that grade.

1 in 6 high schoolers have solemnly considered suicide
1 in 12 will attempt suicide, that number is increasing.
The education system needs to change
In how they handle mental health.

The world needs to change
How it handles mental health.

It's killing us.

I just realized that peter pan is actually an angel
And neverland is heaven
Those kids didn’t age because they were dead
I wish I didn’t age

I try to put my mental health before education
But then it affects my education which effects  
My mental health which effects my
Educ- you get it

Do you realize we are the kids our parents
Warned us about

I am an overly emotional
Clingy
Distant private person
Who has the tendency to overshare at any moment
And I don’t know what the **** that means
But I'm going with it

This poem doesn’t really have a meaning
But I think that might be the meaning

its been a tedious day
after five classes
and an extra rehearsal
almost 200 students
full of energy that is hard to
tame.
thinking back
i dont remember it being this hard
things have changed
things are different now
the older teachers say it all the time
i remember it too

for a moment
i stand in the bathroom
just to breath
and stare at my reflection
the man in the mirror
looks foreign to the man inside my
head.

old
fat
bald
my face could never lie.
what happened to the
man i thought i would be?
i guess no one gets to be
happy at work
but i thought i would come
close.