Devonne Brown

The truth is a burning promise I have to live up to or lie about. Truth comes in lots of flavors. It’s easier to lie and ignore what’s in front of me sometimes. Knowing what I have to do to live up to the standards of school, or home, or law. I’d rather live one truth, put up the lie and not do anything. Not doing is lying. 

Yesterday, I was given two lesson plans from two different teachers that they said would be fun and meet the standards of the course I teach. They were fairly salivating. Standards are the promise that will lift our students out of the mire of poverty and into the world of opportunity and glory of the real world, according to our school board. They were appalled that I wasn’t delirious with excitement over their plans.

So. These two lesson plans that I was given that don’t fit the plan from my supervisor that go against my philosophy of vocabulary, made me lie about my truth and accept theirs. That happens outside of school too. We learn to keep quiet about such things to get along. 

I keep the truth of my promises stuck in my pants pockets like my quarters for the soda machine. They burn holes through them, scorching my legs sometimes when I get confronted with something I think is pure stupidity, like the data we have to memorize. How many kids are proficient in English because of our goings on. My goings on were apparently fine until you told me I needed glue sticks and notebooks instead of half sheets of paper.  You don’t sign my paycheck.

The truth is, I have a burning desire to carry out the promise I made to carry out my duties. I don’t want to use those damned glue sticks and print off papers everyday either. I’m lazy. I will because it will satisfy the other teachers who don’t understand the old ways of using pencils and paper to achieve the end of learning a new word without running off a thousand sheets of paper.