Sixty-seven children have been slaughtered.
Sixty-seven dreams have been shattered.
Sixty-seven beautiful faces have now vanished.
Sixty-seven vibrant smiles have faded.
Sixty-seven beds are left empty.

Palestinian children, like all children, love to play.
Palestinian children are longing for peace.
The children of Gaza dream to be teachers, nurses, artists, engineers, and doctors.
Palestinian children want to breathe.
Palestinian children's lives matter!

(Palestinian children killed by Israel in Gaza in May, 2021)

Hussein Dekmak

Look at us perched again,
anxious dreams set in long gone buildings
where the kids won’t do a thing we ask
and for some reason we’re naked
(except for a mask)

And as my old man says,
the conveyor belt hasn’t so much as slowed
so our wish for a cautious toe to get set
will be whipped from starter to panicked plenary
before we hear the gun crack

Know this, comrades:
the holes in our practice we think show clear
are lost to the fizz and bubble of our charges.
When Monday comes they’ll listen (mostly)
as we carry on regardless.

Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!
We’ve all earned our time in the sun
to let tense necks and foreheads unfurl
and remember that even though it’s a bit busted
there is a world

For the love of heck, turn off the laptop
stretch legs and do you
even if it’s tricky to remember
there are plans outside of planning

Your role is essential, even while
fat white men who went to abusive schools
will tell you otherwise

You need your energy to lift the eyes
of those who feel low, forgotten and rotten
so please
recharge

I wonder what you would have thought of my stupid words
Maybe you would have appreciated the sheer amount of times i’ve come here
Sitting down on a bank beside a blank dead body of water
What would you have told me ?
To pursue this tiny flame of potential, or to blow it out and lock it up.
You would have known I can’t do that, the gas seeps out of every crevice
There's no way to prevent the spark that lights everything on fire.
I wonder what you would have thought about my stupid words.

Thank you To my teachers that never gave up on me
when I was thinking of giving up on myself
thank you for helping me realize that there are nice people out in the world.
Thank you for giving me hope in humanity.
Thank you for being there in my bad times and making me smile
Thank you for the hugs that you gave when words could not help.
Thank you for the wisdom you shared with me...
Thank you for noticing the fake smile on my face; even my friends did not.
Thank you for being yourself and teaching what you thought was important.
Thank you for teaching from your heart, not the textbooks.
Thank you for being my role model
but most importantly
thank you now; I have a dream I could go after
and that is to be like you.

If I were the principle of my school
I would bring some changes to the rules
A school where every child can dare
To think freely and be their true selves

I would give the a problem to solve
By themselves.A chance to evolve
To grow., with all the senses involved

I don't want parrots belching memorized words
Students aren't sheep, teachers aren't shepherds
I would want them to live in an open world
Where they can question everything under the Sun

Bookish knowledge is not all
There's more to life than Newton's laws
We are artists, us human not robots
Scientist, philosophers, why should we be restricted to some selected thoughts

I would want basic life skills
To be taught to every pupil
So that when they leave these gates
They aren't left confused and dazed

We must teach them empathy
Theory gives way to practicality
So that when they got no help
They can think for themselves

Don't sacrifice the individual
At the altar of peer-pressure
These would be my principles
If I were my school's principal.

I daily commit to being negatively capable
one might even say it’s the defining spark
of a life spent loving and hating
the art and accountancy
of the modern teacher’s grins and grind

So here’s a mellowly fruitful glass raised
to comrades and fellow sufferers
who dwell in uncertainty and decreasing circles
while those, as sure as idiots
forge ahead