All hands on deck
All systems a go
One system fails
The Forgotten Youth

Children no longer in rows
Facing a clock
Responding to bells
To be programmed for factories

Instead

Children in table groups
With a table mate
Seen as some sort of number
To be programmed for cells?

Maybe no. Maybe so.

School leaders who damage
And have no control
Teachers frozen like stone
And just want to go home

The smoke from poverty’s cycle
Clouds future vision
Chaos consumes the mind
Of The Forgotten Youth
Left far behind

This was written as I try to process what I’m observing in education. There has certainly been a shift in education from 1996 until now. I don’t comprehend what I’m experiencing. But, the end result can be seen in the following 2 statements that I heard 2 children younger than 8 years old make:

“I feel hopeless.”
“I want to get hit by a car.”