Taylor+Mali

media type="youtube" key="neslRBRo_wc" height="315" width="420" Sunday nights I lie awake— as all teachers do— and wait for sleep to come like the last student in my class to arrive. My grading is done, my lesson plans are in order, and still sleep wanders the hallways like Lower School music. I’m a teacher. This is what I do. Like a builder builds, or a sculptor sculpts, a preacher preaches, and a teacher teaches. This is what we do. We are experts in the art of explanation: I know the difference between questions to answer and questions to ask. That's an excellent question. What do you think? If two boys are fighting, I break it up. But if two girls are fighting, I wait until it’s over and then drag what’s left to the nurse’s office. I’m not your mother, or your father, or your jailer, or your torturer, or your biggest fan in the whole wide world even if sometimes I am all of these things. I know you can do these things I make you do. That’s why I make you do them. I’m a teacher. This is what I do. Once in a restaurant, when the waiter asked me if I wanted anything else, and I said, "No, thank you, just the check, please," and he said, "How about a look at the dessert menu?" I knew I had become a teacher when I said, "What did I just say? Please don’t make me repeat myself!" In the quiet hours of the dawn I write assignment sheets and print them without spell checking them. Because I’m a teacher, and teachers don’t make spelling mistakes. So yes, as a matter of fact, the new dress cod will apply to all members of the 5th, 6th, and 78th grades; and if you need an extension on your 55-paragraph essays examining The Pubic Wars from an hysterical perspective you may have only until January 331st. I trust that won’t be a problem for anyone? I like to lecture on love and speak on responsibility. I hold forth on humility, compassion, eloquence, and honesty. And when my students ask, “Are we going to be responsible for this?” I say, If not you, then who? You think my generation will be responsible? We’re the ones who got you into this mess, now you are our only hope. And when they say, “What we meant was, ‘Will we be tested on this?’” I say Every single day of your lives! Once, I put a pencil on the desk of a student who was digging in her backpack for a pencil. But she didn’t see me do it, so when I walked to the other side of the room and she raised her hand and asked if she could borrow a pencil, I intoned, In he name of Socrates and Jesus, and all the gods of teaching, I declare you already possess everything you will ever need! Shazzam! “You are the weirdest teacher I have ever—” Then she saw the pencil on her desk and screamed. “You’re a miracle worker! How did you do that?” I just gave you what I knew you needed before you had to ask for it. Education is the miracle, I’m just the worker. But I’m a teacher. And that’s what we do.

I think that the main theme of this poem is about how teachers are miracle workers. Taylor Mali is obviously a strong advocate for teachers, and through this poem he shows how education and teachers can make such a huge impact in one's life. Occasionally, he talks about how teachers think they are always right but how they are only human, so they too make mistakes. He looks at some of the funny aspects of teachers such as the part about the restaurant, etc. Through all of this, I think Taylor Mali establishes his theme of how teachers are human even though they can seem like miracle workers. I chose this poem because when I first saw him perform it, he made me laugh. Usually when something makes me laugh it's a good thing because it means they have touched my heart. And after reading the lyrics, I knew this was the poem I was going to do because it had funny parts, truthful parts, and serious parts. I also chose this poem because I loved the conversational tome in it and it made me feel as though I was actively involved in the poem.
 * __Theme and Why I Chose this Poem__**

__**Key Words and Phrases**__
 * Miracle Workers: I think this is an important phrase because that is what he is comparing teachers and education to.
 * Teachers: This word is obviously important because this is what the poem is about.
 * Pencil: Now this may not seem a important word, but to me it symbolizes something biggfer and greater. In the context of the poem, it talks about how Mr. Mali gave his student a pencil before she asked for it because she knew he needed it, therefore I concluded that the pencil was merely a symbol for education or anything good for that matter.
 * "Teachers don't make spelling mistakes": I think this is an important phrase because again spelling mistakes basically stands for any mistake and through this line I think that he is saying that even though teachers sometimes seem like miracle workers, they are only human as they too make mistakes.
 * "I’m not your mother, or your father,or your jailer, or your torturer, or your biggest fan in the whole wide world": I think that this sentence is amazing! I can relate to this sentence because I'm a student and I've heard complaints and complained so many times about teachers and the way they torture us or try to be our mom, or how sometimes they are the nicest people ever. Therefore, I think that this sentence is very relatable.

__**Poetic Devices**__
 * Symbols
 * Rhythm and Rhyme
 * Metaphors
 * Similes
 * Irony
 * Imagery