Reflections on Teaching

Reflections on Teaching  

In the back of the language arts classroom

between shelves of worn words, there is a window.

Students fight to sit in that square of light, with paper

and a pen, pretending the glass is a mirroror

watching for familiar cars, or trying to learn,

perhaps, something about their lives, or hope. 

*

One girl spends her time in furtive hope

that hers is the prettiest face in the room.

She sees no proof that there’s more to learn

than the lessons of her own eyes in the window,

in any surface that reflects her life like a mirror.

She thinks that pretty has more power than paper. 

*

There is a boy, sullen, shirt thin as paper.

He is beaten already, 13 and too tired for hope,

staring out from eyes as flat as darkened mirrors.

There is nothing for him in this world or this room;

He believes this, and that there are no windows

worth looking out of anymore, nothing left to learn. 

*

In every class there is a child waiting to learn

who shows up with enough love and paper

and pens, eager for the open windows

I promise words will offer, for the hope

that what I teach will reach past this room,

for the power to be more that what is in the mirror. 

*

I am teaching myself to be a mirror

To reflect back their beauty so they can learn

there are secrets in this bright lit room,

the power of their lives waiting in the paper.

I try to show them this tool called hope

and how to escape through windows. 

*

This morning, I am sitting, silent, at the window,

startled by my own face, drawn in the pre-dawn mirror.

I fill out lesson plans, maps of what I hope

will prove important, will inspire kids to learn.

These are my best intentions pinned to paper

but the least of what needs to happen in my room. 

*

In this concrete-walled room, we are each in need of windows,

in need of more than paper, more than words and mirrors.

Here, we must learn to find our lives, and hope.  

- Sylvie Essex