Lunch Duty

(I wrote this my second year of teaching, ten years ago. I was teaching in a large urban high school at the time MCAS, the Massachusetts state test, became high-stakes. As I work with undergraduates interested in becoming teachers, I am reminded of my energy and desire to improve the system. With the recent rhetoric regarding teachers' incompetence and the need for more rigorous accountability, I am reminded of this poem and a few others I wrote during this time as a new teacher. I still think it is applicable today as teachers and students are demanded to conform to the status quo. While students deserve good schools, teachers deserve the opportunity to provide this good school. If teachers lack control over their situation and are denied the support to improve themselves and their classrooms, then their morale and their engagement will continue to decline, thus perpetuating low student engagement, performance, and achievement. I view myself as a professional who worked diligently to become a better teacher for the benefit of my students. I consider myself a fairly successful and effective teacher, but I had to spend much time combating the suffocating high-stakes culture.)

As I stand on sore, achy feet
On mud colored carpet, enclosed
By yellow walls
Of high school students conversing and
Stuffing all the starch provided
By the school
Down their long, thin, thick, bony necks,
I sometimes catch the
Unpleasant glimpse of a young girl
Gaunt, looking at the caloric count
Of a diet soda, while chatting with friends
Who sit in subtle discomfort.

As I look upon the faces of youth,
I begin to miss my once idealistic state of mind
When life seemed tough,
But I had time to define a way out.

Faded eyes is not what I intended to find
As I stand here listening
To young men abuse young women and
The women laugh in frozen submission
To their place in the circle.
Some slap him. Others screech obscenities.
The young men laugh in frozen submission
To their place in the circle.

Unfulfilled eyes is not what I intended to find
Attempting to entertain students with state
Mandated writing as yawns of bored conformity
Create uncertainty of the possibility
That I have little idea how to manipulate
The system to entertain gracefully and
Remain favorable in the eyes of the State.

I begin to miss my idealistic reactions to
Infractions on humankind. Water
Embraces my right eye as I peruse
The area making sure all follow the cardinal,
Cafeteria rule:
Four bodies to a table
And
Throw out your trash.