You Must Tell Them This #SOL15

Last week, I described the experience of listening to Dr. Linda Opyr read her poems and talk about the life of a teacher turned writer. This was part of a workshop through the Long Island Writing Project Summer Institute, which I was co-facilitating. We were also joined by the Long Island Writing Project Creative Writing Retreat for Teens. One of Dr. Opyr's poems was entitled, "You Must Tell Them This" which provided inspiration for my poem. I shared this piece with the teachers of the LIWP Summer Institute on our last day together it was my submission it into the publication we created.

You Must Tell Them This

(Inspired by Linda Opyr)

By Kathleen Sokolowski

You must tell them this:

Teaching chose me.

It's broken, expanded, and filled my heart,

and I've learned more than I taught.

You must tell them why I became a teacher-

to be the lantern

lighting the way to literacy and learning

to show students that your choices matter-

your words and actions always count.

You must tell them I always wanted to be better.

Never felt the complacency of “good enough.”

Never thought of teaching as just a job

or a paycheck or 10 months until summers off.

You can’t take a vacation from yourself-

and I am a teacher.

When they speak to you of data points, rigor, and fidelity,

tell them I never saw my students as numbers,

never felt that reading a script from a page

deserved my faithfulness.

Names and stories are what live in my heart.

They can save their Danielson rubrics,

their ranking and rating and sorting.

Assigning me a number and a label

could never inspire a passion or ignite a flame

that wasn’t already burning within me.

When the scores are published

and blaming fingers point at teachers

judging, criticizing, bemoaning,

beseech of them that one number

does not tell the whole story,

cannot sum up a year of living,

breathing, struggling, succeeding,

sharing, listening, laughing,

crying.

Growing.

You must tell them this:

Good teaching has never been about

one measure on one test

on one day.

It's about every day,

every moment,

bringing the best of yourself

and sharing your failures,

showing students the honorable struggle

to lead a worthy life

not measured by income, grades, trophies,

but by the kindness shown,

by tolerance, acceptance, understanding offered.

By finding your place in this world

and then doing what you can do

to make it better.

Tell them to keep their merit pay.

Tell them to stuff their "highly effectives."

Tell them the little girl who asked Santa Claus

for teacher books and supplies

and played school for fun for years

and dreamed of being a teacher

and worked hard to become one

and is still trying each day to be a better one,

tell them she doesn't need them to define her.

She learns from her students each day.

Her heart has broken, filled and expanded.

Teaching chose her.

And despite them and their efforts to paint her

As inept, greedy, lazy, failing,

she still chooses to teach.

You must tell them this.