Did you learn your lesson
he had
but he grew up in the heyday of
Chicagos Public School system when its education was
highly touted and well deserved
when its educational prowess was muscled
and paired
with corporal punishment
affirmed
and allowed by educators and the respective
neighborhoods parentage
right
go right ahead
dont learn your lesson
then show up at school at your own risk
risk not being called on
because when you were called on
& it wasnt necessarily
because you gave the wrong answer a probability
always exists
that you might have erred
misunderstood either the content or context of your lesson
because when you were
called on
& clueless
well then
the teacher elaborated on the lackluster extent of your cluelessness
and thereby
exhausted evaporated any
chance that you might have possibly
misunderstood the lesson . . . they dragged
you question by relentless question into the harsh
glaring light of your duncery .
. . obviously being made an example . .
. before all your
attentive classmates who couldnt turn away or shun their eyes
even if they wanted
in latter years corporal
punishment has been described as shaming
& shaming a child
is reprehensible . . . it deleteriously affects
their confidence . . . their precious . . . their so
very fragile self-esteem
after the withering appraisal
of your failed lesson you were asked to stand and walk
to the front of the
classroom
the cane or whatever was at
hand was used liberally
you could almost hear in their
breathlessness a Biblical measure Spare the rod Spoil
the child
no spoiled children ever passed
out through the heavy oak doubledoors of Norwood Park Elementary School
& because there is no brook
for mistake
as children we were very aware of the risk we ran if we
chose not to learn our lesson
reprehensible
is an adult whose childhoods fragile
self-esteem provided for their abject illiteracy
0215, Sunday,
2 3. 14
