Mildly Melancholy notes that, among other recent frustrations in her busy teacher’s life, a poetry unit she’d been teaching has been washed out by the inevitable test-prep demands.
Our poetry unit is now not really there; we have to do all test prep, every day. We can use poems to show students how to answer test questions about them, but not a study of poetry. And we have to practice writing responses, for the test. Stupid, stupid test.
So poems must be used, not enjoyed or contemplated. Surely this says something—and not a particularly good something—about educational priorities today.
(Mildly Melancholy.)
