Poem: Notes of Naught

 Notes of Naught

Within this notebook seemingly bare I

Find little notes randomly written here

And there. Somewhere past I took notes about 

Students and groupings and things I would teach.

Some of the handwriting is mine, I know,

But other scribblings to me now unknown.

Students’ names, I still remember them all,

Skip down the page every other line

Like a stone skipping across the smooth pond

Of my memories—those that are intact—

And I wonder why I have groups of kids

Listed as genius and idiot?

I was never inclined to be cruel

Or to pick favorites, let alone write

Such hidden thoughts in notes for all to see.

What, you suppose, was the matter with me?

Was I taken in such a fit of rage

As to record an emotion of mine

To later be seen by someone or

Was I grouping upon selections I 

Had pre-determined based upon my Muse,

Or the whim of one of my students near?

And that other handwriting with seven

Boys at the top and an extra line in

Between with four girls down at the bottom?

And then in groupings the idiots all

Boys and the genius groups two with mostly

Girls but one boy? How must that boy have felt

Separated from his mates, made genius

On his own or by his grouping with girls?

I suppose I read far too much into

Notes of naught from a teacher’s hand years past.

October 2023

About This Poem

I sometimes run across things from teaching that strike me as odd. This is an example in poetic form about an old notebook. I can't imagine why I would ever classify students as genius and idiot and I suppose there was something more behind it than some cruel labeling because that is not how I ever felt, even about the most brilliant or most misbehaved students. I played psychologist and always tried to figure out why kids behaved the way they did, sometimes (not very often) taking blame upon myself. It's odd that I taught for 35 years and find so little photographic evidence of my profession except in classroom displays. The photo is a rare example in my later years. I did have video evidence for my National Board Certification, but that has long since been trashed. During COVID there are plenty of pedantic videos I made, but they were mostly me reading something, not actually teaching.