Something I wrote.
Here is my second attempt to write on the topic of equality for the new lit magazine that K.U.G.A.R. puts out, since my poem turned out to be not so much about equality as telling my eighth grade teacher to go fuck herself. I took the same kind of topic and tried to write more broadly about it. How much do you want to be that I'm going to be told that this isn't about equality either. People who read this, please tell me if you think it is. I'm unlocking this one so I can get opinions from people not on my friends list.
*****
Pass or Fail, it’s All Going to be the Same
Nobody believes in “problem” children. The second you get labeled, that’s the end; teachers stop trying to help you with material, social workers start questioning if your mom’s hitting you, you find yourself forced to sign up for Auto Shop and Home Ec. when you’d rather be taking Chemistry and British lit. The second that label is on your school records, doors don’t just close, they slam shut in your face.
Dyslexic Einstein would have never come up with the theory of relativity if he’d been labeled. Bipolar Hemmingway would have been told that writing would never work for him. Any number of great minds would have been left forgotten.
Even with this knowledge, the odd, eccentric, “off” kids are considered dangerous, and they’re hidden. These kids are shuffled off to resource rooms, vo. Techs, jail cells where learning is halted. They’re sent to places where kids who are otherwise completely functional end up in classes with mentally challenged kids. It’s as if they are no longer suitable for the success path.
A kid who can do algebra in his head is told that there’s no way he’d become the scientist he wanted to be, all because he’s dyslexic. The girl who could read at a 10th grade level by the age of five is disruptive because she corrects a teacher. Suddenly, she’s “emotionally disturbed” and stuck reading picture books in a resource room with a kid who has Down’s syndrome.
Normal, talented kids with all the opportunities in the world become the redheaded stepchildren of the education system.
Eventually, you end up at an out-of-district dumping ground where you’re told you’ll never go to college. Get used to operating a fryer, you’re told, that’s the only skill kids like you can take to the bank. You never learn how to write an essay, you never read Hamlet or Macbeth. You look up your English textbook from junior year and find out that it was meant for 8th graders. The assumption that “problem” children can’t survive college becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Occasionally, one of these kids will thrive, wind up at a community college or a bottom-rung university, take Psychology classes and realize just how heavily the odds were stacked against them. They graduate and become the therapists, the teachers, and the social workers who give up on these kids while claiming that they’re helping them. Whole new generations of potential Einsteins and Hemmingways are denied the chance for their greatness and the cycle begins anew.
Tell those kids that equality is more than a pretty idea. Tell those kids that they are being helped, not institutionally abused.
*****
Yes, I know that I'm extremely bitter. I think I have a reason to be. I was FAILED by the education system for 12 years. I have a reason to be as angry and
*****
Pass or Fail, it’s All Going to be the Same
Nobody believes in “problem” children. The second you get labeled, that’s the end; teachers stop trying to help you with material, social workers start questioning if your mom’s hitting you, you find yourself forced to sign up for Auto Shop and Home Ec. when you’d rather be taking Chemistry and British lit. The second that label is on your school records, doors don’t just close, they slam shut in your face.
Dyslexic Einstein would have never come up with the theory of relativity if he’d been labeled. Bipolar Hemmingway would have been told that writing would never work for him. Any number of great minds would have been left forgotten.
Even with this knowledge, the odd, eccentric, “off” kids are considered dangerous, and they’re hidden. These kids are shuffled off to resource rooms, vo. Techs, jail cells where learning is halted. They’re sent to places where kids who are otherwise completely functional end up in classes with mentally challenged kids. It’s as if they are no longer suitable for the success path.
A kid who can do algebra in his head is told that there’s no way he’d become the scientist he wanted to be, all because he’s dyslexic. The girl who could read at a 10th grade level by the age of five is disruptive because she corrects a teacher. Suddenly, she’s “emotionally disturbed” and stuck reading picture books in a resource room with a kid who has Down’s syndrome.
Normal, talented kids with all the opportunities in the world become the redheaded stepchildren of the education system.
Eventually, you end up at an out-of-district dumping ground where you’re told you’ll never go to college. Get used to operating a fryer, you’re told, that’s the only skill kids like you can take to the bank. You never learn how to write an essay, you never read Hamlet or Macbeth. You look up your English textbook from junior year and find out that it was meant for 8th graders. The assumption that “problem” children can’t survive college becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Occasionally, one of these kids will thrive, wind up at a community college or a bottom-rung university, take Psychology classes and realize just how heavily the odds were stacked against them. They graduate and become the therapists, the teachers, and the social workers who give up on these kids while claiming that they’re helping them. Whole new generations of potential Einsteins and Hemmingways are denied the chance for their greatness and the cycle begins anew.
Tell those kids that equality is more than a pretty idea. Tell those kids that they are being helped, not institutionally abused.
*****
Yes, I know that I'm extremely bitter. I think I have a reason to be. I was FAILED by the education system for 12 years. I have a reason to be as angry and