Today’s student is not like we were in the sixties.
The child never had the last word back then.
The child must always have the last word today.
Today’s teacher’s biggest problem is this….
When one student is sassy, other students chime in.
This could not have happened in the sixties.
In the sixties, in my day, the teacher was god of the class.
Usually goddess, but you get my point.
They held the whips, chains, all of the power.
We students were respectful almost a hundred percent of the time.
Those who were not, were rapidly shipped off to reform school.
A place we figured was like jail, except without food or sunlight.
In the sixties if a student had been disrespectful, we would have been silent.
Waiting for that student to be tarred, feathered, and murdered by the teacher.
Her full right, as goddess of the class.
Categories:
reform school, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Free verse
No therapist wanted to do any kind of counseling for B School, which to my home is quite near.
I was frankly bewildered that three of my friends, Susan, Tad, and Sun had told me they would never come back here.
B school looked lovely; the grounds were impeccably beautiful - flowers, wind spinners, and fountains with water ever so clear.
The reception area was colorful, welcoming, pretty even, a tribute to whoever designed it so dear.
I wondered why everyone I had spoken to who had been here hated it so, it was totally unclear.
The dean of students was lovely, smart, engaging, a good listener; a woman who seemed totally dear.
"I would like Tricia Tee take you around, "Dean told me, "So you can see what a ship-shape school we run here.
We had no sooner got to the first locker when a child started to walk past, and I yelled,"Mere!"
My former student looked up, scared, frightened, mesmerized, unable to move, hypnotized by fear.
"That's a demerit for you, Mrs. K, and a demerit for Mere," Tricia said snippily, writing it down in a notebook she had near.
Um...
I think I get it now.
Categories:
reform school, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Rhyme
"Good Morning Heartache"- Billie Holiday
Born to heartache was Eleanor Fagan
in reform school by 9 in Baltimore, Maryland.
At 11 years old she was almost raped.
But she was blamed and jailed for the case.
When 14 she was arrested again,
for her and mother's prostitution game.
What a sad life for a child, you might say.
But this heartache gave birth to Lady Day.
She sang with Artie Shaw, Count and the Duke.
She sang of "southern trees bearing strange fruit."
In her voice you could tell what pain was all about.
It was catharsis for her tragic life sung out.
She suffered the pangs of drug addiction,
with frequent busts, arrests and convictions.
A pearly white gardenia graced her ear.
At Carnegie Hall, she was something to hear.
As she lay ill the law came in again.
Handcuffed to the bed, her life came to an end.
So, "God bless the child, that got her own,"
our Billie Holiday whose heartache's gone.
2/12/17
Eleanora Fagan, professionally known as Billie Holiday, and Lady Day was an American jazz musician and singer-songwriter with a career spanning nearly thirty years. She died at 44.
Categories:
reform school, dedication, life, music, star,
Form: Heroic Couplet
My Reform School
Sharks want blood.
They drink in the flavor.
You can't teach a shark
to drink vinegar.
You can't teach the rapist
not to rape, nor why.
You cannot teach the tyranny,
out of the tyrant.
But you can kill them all.
Dedicated to all my brothers and sisters in war and peace
Categories:
reform school, power,
Form: Free verse
Reform school is where he spent most of his childhood.
From there he went to prison for the bulk of his young adulthood.
Paranoid Schizophrenia is the medical diagnosis of Charles Willis Manson.
I'm sure he displayed many symptoms of this disorder while he was in prison.
When he was informed about his upcoming prison release,
he literally begged prison officials as he fell down to his knees,
"This is the only life that I know. Please don't make me go.
"I'll die out there, " he pleaded with tears in his eyes.
"Please listen to me. I'm telling you truthfully.
If you send me out there I'll never survive."
Which raises the question;
who is truly the guilty party of the Tate-La Bianca murders?
Had prison officials taken him seriously,
when he pleaded on his hands and knees NOT to be released,
the Tate-La Bianca tragedy most certainly would have never occurred.
Categories:
reform school, people, me,
Form: Rhyme
Zero Tolerance at Schools
By Elton Camp
It began with a federal law about bringing guns to school
That offenders must be expelled was the ironclad rule
Then, unwisely, local officials the policy vastly expanded
For drugs, aggression, and other things, expulsion demanded
The intention behind these regulations may have been good
School officials couldn’t be trusted to enforce as they should
Because the regulations by modern Dracos had been written,
Students, for childish behavior, with expulsion were smitten
A six-year-old, happy at joining the cub scouts, ruined his life
Because he brought to school camping stuff: spoon, fork, knife
Because of his heinous crime, zero tolerance enforced the rule
He got a suspension and spent forty-five days in reform school
A retarded child for “strong-armed robbery” was arrested
He stole two dollars and in adult jail for six weeks rested
Only when a CBS “60 Minutes” crew came to report the case
Were the ridiculous charges then dismissed with greatest haste
What very desperately needs to be done, it seems to me,
Is a zero tolerance policy for school officials’ stupidity
Categories:
reform school, angst, school, school, drug,
Form: Rhyme
Reform school is where he spent most of his childhood.
From there he went to prison for the bulk of his adulthood.
Paranoid Schizophrenia is the medical diagnosis of Charles Manson.
I'm sure he displayed many symptoms of this disorder while he was in prison.
When he was informed of his upcoming prison release,
he literally begged prison officials as he fell down to his knees,
"This is the only life that I know. Please don't make me go."
"I'll die out there, " he pleaded with tears in his eyes.
"Please listen to me. I'm telling you truthfully. If you send me out there I'll never survive."
Which brings me to think, who is truly the guilty party of the Tate-La Bianca murders?
Had prison officials taken him seriously, when he pleaded on his knees NOT to be released,
the Tate-La Bianca tragedy most certainly would have never occurred.
Categories:
reform school, me, me,
Form: Rhyme