Categories
Education History Poems Poetry

Women’s Work

It’s amazing, you know.

The extent to which women’s work is undervalued.

Take the Bayeux Tapestry

A stunning piece of work, handmade circa the 11th Century.

The tapestry tells a tale of knights and battles and victories and failings. A tale of kings and their conquests.

What remains? Steel and Armor?

No. Cotton and linen. Threaded and knotted and spliced and faded. It’s stalwart against the greedy hands of time.

Men. They are the ones remembered. Odo and Harold and Hastings probably. A tale of men, created by women. A history where the historians are forgotten.

Not the skills passed down from the old to the young. Not the time and effort and artistry. Not the artist(s) and historians and knowledge makers and holders.

Not the women. They are…overlooked.

But the tapestry remains. And so too does their memory, if you choose to look.

Categories
Current Events Education family Haiku Poems Poetry

College

It’s easy to think

I’m abstract terms about “struggle”

But much harder

When your child is hundreds of miles away

And crying on the phone

Categories
Current Events Education Haiku Poems Poetry

Lonely Satisfaction

Loneliness

It’s a feeling we’re all familiar with

But have you heard

Of lonely satisfaction?

It’s the feeling of newly unwrapped presents

The chill of first snow

The scent of your lovers sweatshirt

Found, tossed aside, in the corner of your house.

Lonely satisfaction is

Coming home from vacation

Or 501 pm on a Friday

It’s things accomplished

But a future

Not yet materialized.

Categories
Current Events Education Haiku Poems Poetry Teaching

8 million

In America

Kids are always the battle ground

What they read

What we teach them

How we raise them

Yet in our hubris

We allowed 8 million of them

To be stricken with grief

You see

We were too busy arguing

To care about the consequence

Categories
Current Events Education Haiku History Poems Poetry

Progress

We drink our coffee

Skid into our parking spot

Late, by two minutes

The day is a drudge

Much the same as yesterday,

As will be tomorrow

Oblivious to

The obliteration of

An entire culture

That’s what we call progress

Categories
Education Haiku parenting Poems Poetry

Youths!

It’s never enough

You can work – or stay at home

You can have game nights

And family dinner

You can take an interest

Or give them some space

But no matter what

To a teenager…

It’s never enough

Categories
Education Haiku parenting Poetry

Kids

Labor division

Is never equitable

Where kids are involved

Categories
Education History Poetry Teaching

Essays

The typing of keys

The rustling of paper notes

Soft murmured questions

Intensity’s high

When students are writing

Categories
Climate Education Poetry Teaching

Snowballs

Snow brings the trouble

The kids smell change in the air

Their noses upturned

Minds whirring with plots

It begins innocently

A white rush of air

A splash of cold snow

Suddenly, it’s a frenzy

Mounds crisscross the yard

Showering the kids

All with red noses and smiles

Hands cold and frozen

Rejoicing in the weather

Until the adults swarm in

To end the melee

Categories
Education Haiku Poetry Teaching

Reckoning

Please, make no mistake

New laws that attack our schools

Are not “for the parents.

That’s propaganda

Parents are often

Invited into the class

Lessons are often

Already online.

No. These laws show lawmakers

Who they can target

Thinly veiled attempts

To root out the teachers who

Teach real history

Because you see friends…

Education is power

Education is change

Education is discussion

Education is critical thinking.

Being educated

Shouldn’t be easy.

Education is a reckoning

And that should feel uncomfortable.