Middle School Math Teacher

Robert Ronnow
Long As You're Living

Middle School Math Teacher

Should I become a middle school math or English teacher?
Leave my bed early in the morning and return with test papers to grade.
With what authority will I persuade those kids to sit still and perform calculations and
      interpretations.
I won’t be allowed to teach A Good Man Is Hard To Find. Nope, it’ll be Catcher in the Rye,
      Lord of the Flies and Slaughterhouse Five. Novels that annoy.
Poems and math are magic. Words and numbers are things no one has ever seen or heard or
      touched.
But the administration keeps them separate. The curriculum's determinate.
The kids are beautiful but combustible. When middle school lets out at the periapsis of Earth’s
      orbit, that’s the face of joy.

The purpose of school is to introduce us to the world’s innumerable wonders. The periodic table,       World Wars I and II, Huckleberry Finn and Jim.
Once a gaggle of teenage girls bet whether I wore boxers or jockeys. I felt ambushed and
      unlucky. Also a bit afraid.
There’s little love lost between the students and the teachers. Expect to forget and be forgotten.
      Information.
I remember Mr. Killian my chemistry teacher. So boring about something I now find so
      interesting and important. He wasn’t boring; I was boring.
I remember Mr. Christensen my history teacher. He was fat and funny but taught as little as
      possible. I was known to laugh so hard I cried.
I remember Mr. T my calculus teacher. He dressed everyday exactly like Gene Kranz in mission
      control. I was confused past help so he didn’t help.
I remember Tone Kwas my music teacher. He said I was the worst trumpet player he’d ever tried
      to teach and switched me to sousaphone. He was right but so what! Playing badly is the best
      riposte.