Hello my name is worthless
Name number and date
State your class and hour
Let the rubric pick your fate

This is the first stanza of a high-school student’s poem, as posted by her teacher, Kevin Bosworth, in Diane Ravitch’s blog. Go to the link and read the entire poem; I’m not going to quote any more of it here. I’ve read it twice, and now it won’t get out of my head. I will make no attempt to comment on it as poetry — that’s irrelevant, and I’m not qualified to do so anyway — but I have to think about it in the context of what Betsy DeVos’s Education Department has been doing. (She’s not the only one, of course. She’s just been following recent trends and taking them extremes.)

OK, I just said that I wouldn’t quote any more, but I have to quote one more stanza before finishing up:

They question our depression
They wonder why we’re stressed
When our futures are decided
Doing better on a test

How many students do I know who feel the same way?

Categories: Teaching & Learning