Sinking

The ship is sinking

and I wonder if they see.

They’re bailing water

but the holes still gape.

Why is no one patching the holes?

The ship tilts

one side then another.

Just patch the holes.

No, they’re bailing water.

One pail and then another.

It’s going under

slowly

but surely.

Down she goes

and they’re still trying to bail water.

Sinking, sunk, sank.

But it did not have to be that way

all they had to do was patch the holes,

the actual problems.

I was thinking how many of my educator friends feel right now as the words above came out. But I want you to know, please hear me, schools everywhere are filled with people who are working to patch the holes. Never have I worked alongside such incredible, creative, hard-working human beings likes the ones who enter classrooms each day. Even still, there are days that feel like an uphill battle. There are days it feels apathy has taken precedence over doing what is right and needed for the students we serve. It is not a perfect system, but I fear what it would become if those who are daily working to make the wrong things right abandoned ship.