Who is Leaving Who?

Anthony Liu

No Child Should Be Left Behind.
            But they want reasons. And they spread their eyelids a little wider.
            A hint of a frown. A concerned stare; the hint of soft tears and a warm sniffle.

Because they are the future. They carry us with beaming faces towards the gleaming light that rises above a grassy meadow. They dance and play around the silvery buildings, they laugh and read and spin around the carousel, dressed in red, lacy skirts and denim overalls. They double-knot their bright sneakers, they eat their vegetables, they watch cartoons for only thirty minutes every weekend. They sing like twittering sparrows, chimes, bells, stars, glitter, choruses. And maybe Johnny will forget his sevens times tables. And maybe Jessie will fall down and scrape her knee. But they grow up, like the throat grows again after a little cough; it just needs a little chicken soup. And after Mom and Dad smile at their spelling tests, it off to soccer, or gymnastics, or the living room.

Because wee certified. Knowledgeable.

Smile.

Because your child is important to us! And here, we ensure that their continued growth and education is our first priority. Of course we follow our certified protocol! Yes, (and the intonation slopes and peaks and squeaks and beams with dripping syrup, but not too much, because it would give the kids cavities) we at the Academy enrich their learning to develop new practices that improve student achievement. In the Academy program, teachers participate in workshops and online seminars that enrich their content knowledge and teaching practice. The overall program promotes continuous improvement by helping teachers work together to establish their understanding of high standards and how to help students reach them. The Academy and the Evidence to Excellence process promote trust among teachers and the capacity to work collaboratively to improve instruction for all students.

The parents dip their biscotti in the little paper cups of sugary coffee. They shift in the little warm plastic chairs and nod lovingly.
Sway to the playful beat.
Swirling the little straws.
Switching the tinny audio track.
So don worry! Your child will not be left behind.

A heartfelt sigh.

They look around the room, standing, squeaking those little chairs. Heads turn, hands are shaken, fathers straighten ties and exchange cards. Mothers compliment each others?handbags, letting out those softly piercing laughs that come with practice. And around them, the sweetly crude finger paintings smile down at them all. The fluorescent pinks and greens seem to glow slightly like candy that has been wrapped in too much plastic.

An excellent choice!

Thank you, Mr. Dewitt. Martha and I are so glad to be part of the community.

And Johnny sits on the massive couch at home, toying with his fingernails. His toes wriggle at the digital clock, because when the first number turns into an Eight, they will rumble back into the driveway. And then hel tell them about his day, because Sally shared a sandwich with him at lunch. And the Triceratops herd found a new bivouac near the kitchen counter, because that where the subtropical plains are, and that a suitable habitat. And Mister D told him today that his math was getting much better, and he could finish his problem sheet in ten minutes.

But it still a Seven. And Johnny thinks about how a kid was saying the F Word in class today. And today, his friend told him that all black kids were stupid. Because they came from Africa and used to be slaves, but Abraham Lincoln let them stop working. His father told him that. And Johnny fidgets and squirms in his seat, and he keeps staring at those black, sharp shapes on the clock.

Still a Seven.

Seven.

Seven.

Eight.

But nothing. Nine. Ten. Nothing but the clink of cocktail glasses, the smiling stupors, the handshakes that get softer and softer as the night goes on.

And

When John is Fourteen, he sweats and he grunts and he finds out how fucking pointless his history class is. Because it not actually important, right? In actuality, all he learns are facts. He knows the dates of

Watergate
The First Communique
The Joint Straits Treaty
            And Pearl Harbor or something like it.

And honestly, who gives a fuck?

Fuck:

The usually accepted first known occurrence is in code in a poem in a mixture of Latin and English composed some time before 1500. The poem, which satirizes the Carmelite friars of Cambridge, England, takes its title, "Flen flyys", from the first words of its opening line, "Flen, flyys, and freris." The "John le Fucker" occurrence in 1278 AD is doubtful. "This reference first appears in Carl Buck's 1949 Indo-European dictionary. Buck does not supply a citation as to where he found the name. No one has subsequently found the manuscript in which it is alleged to have appeared. If the citation is genuine and not an error, it is most likely a spelling variant of "fulcher", meaning soldier.

But I don learn

            I use.

The word fuck has cognates in other Germanic languages, such as German icken?Middle Dutch okken?dialectical Norwegian ukka?and dialectical Swedish ocka?and ock.?/font>

Whoa. Xanga.