Reflective Perspective or Done Don Gone Wrong?

Good morning class, I am Mister Holloway

We’re here to learn and have fun all the way

I’m pre-service and work so hard – no holiday

 Now we’re applyin’ our Science all the day

I was born of the dominant white middle-class

Raised around the world but with a little riddle passed

On to me ‘bout equality and fairness as a filial task

Still I search from on my perch never thinking it’ll pass

This is term 2, I’m in this private boys’ school

Our year 7 science lab always foils fools

This class is sharp and it deploys tools

Yearning for learning and sometimes destroys stools

Had a Science literacy test a week ago

But one boy was away – he’s pretty sneaky, oh

Next he got the test and did he leak a groan?

I don’t know but know he showed no cheeky glow

Meet Donny, he failed that summative contest

Diagnostic for me but my mentor had confessed

That “D” can’t read or write with speed or context

And not knowing what to do I moved along and called, “next”.

I was unprepared; want him to try do well

If I’d put him on the spot would be to fly him through hell

Invisible he tried to be until the high noon bell

But I want to find a way to make his pride to swell

I must say to my dismay I failed to differentiate

I was finding my feet, trying hard to find a difference ǀ to make

To any one student but instead I perpetuate

That at-risk students get left behind, broken, or they’re left to break.

Donny had hidden away too well and far too long

Temptation to leave solution of literacy was too strong

Ratio of students to teacher twenty-six to one

And reaching every student seems too hard-won.

So, what goes into reasoning pedagogical?

We experience and feel, emotional and logical

There’s a gap in there and we’re aware that we should stop to pull

Together ideas, from far and near, we think and we act, but not the fool.

At this stage, Piaget states, a child is in transition

Into teenage, we’d say that it’s a manned mission

To unexplored space in learning, standards risen,

Help from peers and teachers is sorely needed and given.

While a private school is full from the pull for the middle class

The diversity, socially and ethnically is a task

To be fair and fully aware every family has its past

Homogenizing cultural capital vs valuing virtual schoolbags in contrast.

While Donny is not obviously from a marginalized group

The assumption that private school students are a harmonized troop

Guessing “D”’s of low SES is a hardly-wise view

But until I’ve more to go on, that’s my partly-biased truth.

Difficulties in reading and writing were but two factors

In a cast of learnt behaviours, all proved actors

In a play that paved the way for nay-sayer detractors

Or breadcrumbs for someone to come to help “D” to max scores.

Other than laying low, Donny often forgot his book

During class he’d get it from his locker, or with a perplexed look

on his face return empty-handed or reversed and took

His leave of me, to pee now please, or better yet get crook.

Dyslexic was the first word to come to me when

I saw Donny’s literacy test mark, and feeling

Like, what other clues could his parents and I use to begin revealing

Any phonographical, organizational problems that need healing.

In this global age it appears to me that we’ve

Reduced everybody to a number just because we believe

Positivism holds the answer, check performativity

For the value of each person in this world I truly grieve.

In this system, Donny could proceed with a fail

Little does he need to do or heed still to sail

Through though you know he hates school, it feels like a jail

Let’s help this whelp with the freedom to achieve and prevail.

Education’s Donny’s right, to be fair for social justice

Each lesson plan has goals and we can adjust its

Scope for “D” to cope and hope it’s challenging and just as

Accessible for him and for all and self-esteem, in them it musters.

As well as trying to find outside help for Donny’s difficulties

I will work hard to find his learning styles and try to target and please

His multiple intelligences could be coming in twos and threes  

Always to praise a raise of grades, the benefits - you can’t annul these.

It could also be that Donny could use any reliance

On imagery or kinesthetics to be an achiever in Science 

Foregrounding the discipline in this class seeks the appliance

Of a few tools and subject-matter rules to stand on the shoulders of giants.

Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin thought outside the box

Walt Disney and Davinci’s images gave us lots

Edgar Allan Poe and Hemingway wrote and hit the spot

Forever they’re clever. Dyslexic? Whatever! Forget them we will not

Tips to teaching text to teens, Tovani took to task

She sure showed some super strategies, saving struggling staff

Remarkable reading, writing reference, really a rescue raft

Question quality, quote the quenchless quandaries, query those quixotic quarks.

So many things I’d like to bring back to the class to help Don

Next year he’s year 8, it’s not too late, but the chances won’t forever go on

While I assessed and tried my best at the time, everything’s moved along

I’m a learner for life and for growth I strive and this is not Don’s swan song

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