Curriculum

Curriculum


“A path run in small steps.”
By definition
A curriculum:
What we teach,
The bling of our personal touch.

Incremental repetition.
Variations of steps.

Bantam chicken feet
In forest litter.
Guiding to a nest:
(Definition 3)
“to force a person, object, or animal
to move in a certain path.”

A community: where a child (free and reduced lunch)
Plays with unifix cubes of primary colors,
in patterns of AB, AB, AB.
Little hands hold trains of cubes
to measure a chair,
and draw frogs in a pencil lead pond,
when all they really want is a laser gun
to shoot the bad guys.
(See that’s the force!)

II.

I follow rules.
I believe in research.
I believe the educational science.
I strive to be current.
I swallow and do the exercise,
(no matter how painful to self.)
I admit my weaknesses.
I strengthen,
because it is what is best for the child.
(Hello, Margaret!)

Curriculim:
Foolishness on a path.
Risks on either side:
Science. Belief.
(Definition 2: systematic knowledge
of the physical or material world gained
through observation and experimentation.)
Often for years,
Controlled grouped.
I trust the rules.
I trust the research.
I trust my ability to learn.

Data does not come easy for me.
Just as Latin and French did not roll
off my lips and communicate meaning.
I trick the brain to understand.

By myself I don’t do what is right
For the child,
That chooses markers
(oily bright in all their messiness)
over crayons
(waxy crumbles that glide not on paper)
Vygotsky, Piaget, Maslow.

III.
Curriculum
Reading Street, Bridges,
Scott Forseman, Houghton Mifflin.
It is not what we map,
(map, a verb)
It’s not the Essential.
It’s not the CORE.
It’s not the Coop,
Or the nest box;
Just random eggs,
placed in a carton,
To sell to school districts.

IV.

I had a hen,
A Banty hen
Who scratched the forest floor,
Scratched at needles,
Tore at the detritus.
Spearing grubs, and gobbling grasshoppers.
Underneath the Manzanita
She laid a nest of earthy eggs.
I found the eggs,
Washed them in the sink.
Refrigerated.
And when I cracked one
The almost chick
Sputtered in the yellow butter.

That chick that I committed to hypothermia
In my refrigerator,
Did not perish from the lack
Of a mother’s love
Or even from nature’s predators,
But from my ignorance.
As I heaved into the trash can,
And swore off eggs forever,
I wondered what small steps went off the path?