Home » Poems » L Milton Hankins » Ode To An Elementary School Teacher

Ode To An Elementary School Teacher

I 

First period each morning she meets their languid sighs
Their low moaning at new tasks to be undertaken
She must be upbeat, no matter her personal woes,
In her crisp, clean dress and comfortable walking shoes
She steps briskly around the room with encouraging
Words, smiles for the underprivileged girl so needy
A hint of special affection for a wayward lad
A hard taskmaster some former students have averred
True, indeed, she has high expectations, she demands
The highest quality of work from her young charges
Same she always brings to her overcrowded classroom
Where she allows no insult or bullying others.

II

She faces some difficult parents who seldom know
What transpires in the average classroom teachers' day
Threatening, browbeating, and some will even threaten
Throwing up angry hands in defeat, she never does.
She does what is necessary to help them succeed
Her main objective is moving her students forward.

III

Planning and improvising, then she will implement
She will go home to care for her waiting family--
Convincing, she will console, and likely she transports
She will cook, do cleaning, shopping, sometimes pays the bills
After the family is settled down, she begins
Her preparations for the next day in her classroom
And, a teacher does all of this on the lower end
Of the pay scale in most every school district I know.

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Gershon Wolf

Date: 4/12/2021 9:12:00 PM

God bless you, Milt, for this write. For you are right about the best of them. That is precisely what they do... As for the worst of them, just come to Chicago, and I'll show you schools --- empty of them, because they refuse to teach anymore, the sniveling cowards, refusing to 'follow the science' now that it doesn't suit their union agenda... Back to your write: Please know that tears welled up in my eyes reading this, thinking both of teachers I knew and know. Blessings, gw

L Milton Hankins
Date: 4/13/2021 7:07:00 AM

Thanks, Gershon. It's a shame that my poem doesn't reflect the work of every teacher, because there are some who do not put the children and their education first. I have been out of the classroom for a long, long time, and I understand it is not the same now.