Learning: The Lifelong Profession

(Above: Illustration at the beginning of Euclid's Elementa, in the translation attributed to Adelard of Bath.  This is thought to be the first image of a woman teaching and may be the personification of Geometry)

Today’s poem is an old idea I had and revised based on several conversations I had during my work day. Sometimes I work with numbers, some days more than others, and today was a numbers day and reminded me of the few months I worked as a substitute instructor in the Springfield Oregon school district for a few months in 2001. It was a temporary job, but I also knew of the rigors of teaching based on my dad’s 30 year career working in the public school system.

Teaching and learning and learning and teaching is what life is about. This poem is dedicated to the kids in underfunded school districts in the US and around the world and all of those who dedicate their lives to helping them learn. Oh, and also to the mentors in life who help us adults learn to do new tricks.

Greater than >, Less Than<
by Nicole Speulda

Her head bobs up and down in silence
enthusiastic
as if I asked her today’s rules
of recess kick-ball
or if she likes t-shirts, the color light blue
not like the sky on a high-cloud day
but of eye-shadow flecked with glitter.

But the mathematics rule I impart
is suspended on the page
in front of her hand, not inside of her head.
This side of the three, the whole left side
where my finger is, that’s More than three,
and everything on this side, two, one, zero...
Those are Less than three.
So, what number is one less than three?
What number is one more than three?
Head down, shoulders shrug, hair sighs
her borrowed pencil shakes up and down,
There is no answer save the I don’t care,
I don’t know, maybe so, I play soccer, you know.

She is less than happy to be here
she is more than happy to be away from home
and she takes more drugs in lesser doses
than the average menopausal woman.
At noon I administer the pills
to grade-schoolers able to function without
without money, without haircuts
without soap or moms and dads.

And after disruptions and careless action,
physical outbursts and emotional reaction,
I ask how much longer they’d like to stay,
how many minutes more can you waste?
Well, now it’s 2:30, so maybe four minutes more,
that would make it two thirty four.

Suddenly she understood the concept
of give and take-- more school, less fun.
And maybe less doesn’t mean fewer things,
a deficit of love, or lack of sight.
Less is the balance of more, more and more,
an opulence without pomp and grandour.
When too much expands more contracts
and sometimes much is learned in the smallest facts.
And happiness is found in the middle.