I need to sit. I need to pray.
Because sometimes, we just have to walk away.
I came to teach kids, to read and write
Yet you look on me with so much spite.
I didn't know you'd pull the rug
And afterwards, look so smug.
I understand how to play the game
To keep quiet, as you pursue some kind of sick fame
As long as I can teach, I can close my door
But you just keep adding more files on my floor
I'm swamped, spending hours and hours
Testing, instead of helping students to plant flowers.
I have non-negotiables, they say
You have no time to go and play
You have the tests, You need the scores,
Just keep turning in those papers, before you close your classroom door.
I don't care how long it takes,
I don't care if you teach,
You just get it done, or you will put me out on the street.
Well, I'm tired. I've had enough.
I can't stand by when you force me to be rough.
I didn't sign up for any of this.
but it's the students I will sorely miss
Of reading a good book, on a nice soft colored rug
and have students drink out of imaginary coffee mugs.
I've put up a fight for so long,
with no win in sight, and it's still so wrong.
But I believe in the students I've taught,
I truly believe they can't be bought.
They will speak out one day.
Loud and in unison and demand
their politicians stop playing with their land
Their land of learning that needs desperately to grow
With teachers ready to help them sow
A love of learning full of imagination,
one void and no fear of any retaliation.
Is it because we are Mexican and poor?
Would you act this way to the whites in the suburbs next door?
They can teach and grow and learn,
and we are stuck in testing mode with months to burn.
I'm just tired of legalized segregation
separate by race and class and still call it education
I need to sit. I need to pray.
Because sometimes, we just have to walk away.
Our Lady of Fatima, Ora Pro Nobis.
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