Slam+Poetry

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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. What do you think? If two boys are fighting, I break it up. But if two girls are fighting, I wait until it’s over and then drag what’s left to the nurse’s office. I’m not your mother, or your father, or your jailer, or your torturer, or your biggest fan in the whole wide world even if sometimes I am all of these things. I know you can do these things I make you do. That’s why I make you do them. I’m a teacher. This is what I do. Once in a restaurant, when the waiter asked me if I wanted anything else, and I said, "No, thank you, just the check, please," and he said, "How about a look at the dessert menu?" I knew I had become a teacher when I said, "What did I just say? Please don’t make me repeat myself!" In the quiet hours of the dawn I write assignment sheets and print them without spell checking them. Because I’m a teacher, and teachers don’t make spelling mistakes. So yes, as a matter of fact, the new dress cod will apply to all members of the 5th, 6th, and 78th grades; and if you need an extension on your 55-paragraph essays examining The Pubic Wars from an hysterical perspective you may have only until January 331st. I trust that won’t be a problem for anyone? I like to lecture on love and speak on responsibility. I hold forth on humility, compassion, eloquence, and honesty. And when my students ask, “Are we going to be responsible for this?” I say, If not you, then who? You think my generation will be responsible? We’re the ones who got you into this mess, now you are our only hope. And when they say, “What we meant was, ‘Will we be tested on this?’” I say Every single day of your lives! Once, I put a pencil on the desk of a student who was digging in her backpack for a pencil. But she didn’t see me do it, so when I walked to the other side of the room and she raised her hand and asked if she could borrow a pencil, I intoned, In the name of Socrates and Jesus, and all the gods of teaching, I declare you already possess everything you will ever need! Shazzam! “You are the weirdest teacher I have ever—” Then she saw the pencil on her desk and screamed. “You’re a miracle worker! How did you do that?” I just gave you what I knew you needed before you had to ask for it. Education is the miracle, I’m just the worker. But I’m a teacher. And that’s what we do.

The poem Miracle Worker by Taylor Mali metaphorically describes teachers as miracle workers. Some poetic devices include the symbol e ducation is the miracle, I’m just the worker. Another poetic device is personification in the first verse. He describes how sleep can wander the halls of the school and how sleep is a student in his class. He also uses repetition in the poem, for example, he keeps on repeating the phrase I am a teacher and that is what we do. He repeats this phrase a lot because he is trying to prove that teachers are miracle workers. He is giving human qualities to a non-human object because sleep cannot actually wander and is definitely not in his class. He also uses onomatopoeia when he says shazzam. Shazzam is being used as exclimation and at the same time it imitates the sound it represents. Another symbol that he uses throughout the poem is how he keeps on talking about he is a teacher. However, by saying teacher, what he actually means is that worker who does all these great things for his students just because he is a miracle worker who is actually a teacher. I chose this poem because I was interested with the title of Miracle Workers. I was interested in what he classified as miracle workers and once I found out that he meant teachers are miracle workers I agreed with him in this topic. I agree with his saying of the teacher being the worker and education as the miracle. I also agree that he helps the class by testing them more and more because he knows that they can do it and that it will help them achieve the miracle. The overall meaning of this poem is that teachers are workers that promote education because he helped the student by giving them a pencil before they even asked. He acted like he had psychic powers and he used this to be a miracle worker. Also, he said that he will test the students everyday and that is actually helping them because they are getting better at what they are doing and they are getting a better education. Overall, the poem Miracle Workers by Taylor Mali is about how teacher who creates miracles for the students he teaches, although he states that "Education is the miracle, I'm just the worker."