Slam+Poetry

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**Miracle Workers** by Taylor Mali ( [|www.taylormali.com] ) Sunday nights I lie awake— as all teachers do— and wait for sleep to come like the last student in my class to arrive.

My grading is done, my lesson plans are in order, and still sleep wanders the hallways like Lower School music. I’m a teacher. This is what I do.

Like a builder builds, or a sculptor sculpts, a preacher preaches, and a teacher teaches. This is what we do.

We are experts in the art of explanation: I know the difference between questions to answer and questions to ask.

That's an excellent question. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">What do you think?

<span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">If two boys are fighting, I break it up. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">But if two girls are fighting, I wait until it’s over and then drag what’s left to the nurse’s office.

<span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">I’m not your mother, or your father, <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">or your jailer, or your torturer, <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">or your biggest fan in the whole wide world <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">even if sometimes I am all of these things.

<span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">I know you can do these things I make you do. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">That’s why I make you do them. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">I’m a teacher. This is what I do.

<span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">Once in a restaurant, when the waiter asked me <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">if I wanted anything else, and I said, <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">"No, thank you, just the check, please,"

<span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">and he said, "How about a look at the dessert menu?" <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">I knew I had become a teacher when I said, <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">"What did I just say? <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">Please don’t make me repeat myself!"

<span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">In the quiet hours of the dawn <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">I write assignment sheets and print them

<span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">without spell checking them. Because I’m a teacher, <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">and teachers don’t make spelling mistakes.

<span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">So yes, as a matter of fact, the new dress cod <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">will apply to all members of the 5th, 6th, and 78th grades; <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">and if you need an extension on your 55-paragraph essays <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">examining The Pubic Wars from an hysterical perspective <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">you may have only until January 331st. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">I trust that won’t be a problem for anyone?

<span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">I like to lecture on love and speak on responsibility. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">I hold forth on humility, compassion, eloquence, and honesty. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">And when my students ask, <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">“Are we going to be responsible for this?” <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">I say, If not you, then who? <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">You think my generation will be responsible? <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">We’re the ones who got you into this mess, <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">now you are our only hope. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">And when they say, “What we meant <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">was, ‘Will we be tested on this?’” <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">I say Every single day of your lives! <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">Once, I put a pencil on the desk of a student <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">who was digging in her backpack for a pencil. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">But she didn’t see me do it, so when I walked <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">to the other side of the room and she raised her hand <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">and asked if she could borrow a pencil, <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">I intoned, In the name of Socrates and Jesus, <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">and all the gods of teaching, <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">I declare you already possess everything you will ever need! <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">Shazzam! <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">“You are the weirdest teacher I have ever—” <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">Then she saw the pencil on her desk and screamed. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">“You’re a miracle worker! How did you do that?” <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">I just gave you what I knew you needed <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">before you had to ask for it. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">Education is the miracle, I’m just the worker. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">But I’m a teacher. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">And that’s what we do. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">

<span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">Sunday nights I lie awake— <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">as all teachers do— <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">and wait for sleep to come

<span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">like the last student in my class to arrive <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">﻿This syntactical group has no methporical meaning, it is quite literal. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;"> <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;"> <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">My grading is done, my lesson plans are in order, <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">and still sleep wanders the hallways like Lower School music. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">I’m a teacher. This is what I do. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">﻿<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">﻿This line too, is quite literal. <span style="color: silver; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 11px; text-decoration: none;">