Think Outside the Box

A few other slicers have been playing around with Golden Shovel Poems this month. You are meant to use a single line from a poem you love, but I decided to take my own spin on this idea when I was inspired by a line in an academic journal today.

You see, I am supposed be writing a rubric for a graduate course I am taking. The thing is, I've always hated rubric, always seen them as a fancy disguise for the same old standardization of thought of which schools have consistently been guilty. So, instead of just sitting down and doing the assignment, I searched the internet for every anti-rubric journal article out there. You know, to get myself all nice and riled up before I had to do something that I didn't want to do.

I did write the rubric (kinda), and I also got a poem out of it. You can read the bold words down the left side to hear Linda Mabry's original quote regarding the true effect of rubrics, and you can read all the words to see the poem she inspired in me...


Think Outside the Box

We did not come to teach them compliance
  To decide what they should think or who they should play with
  To fit them snuggly in a box on the rubric

We nurtured and tended
So they would not need to yield
So they could reach higher
 So they could settle their scores

but
instead our systems produced
students who are  vacuous
because our structures don't honor the beauty in their thinking


References
Linda Mabry, “Writing to the Rubric,” Phi Delta Kappan, May 1999, pp. 678, 676.

Comments

  1. Molly HoganMarch 25, 2018 at 11:52 PM

    That's a powerful golden shovel, especially the ending line. I wrote my first golden shovel poem not long ago, but I never thought of taking a line from an academic article. Great idea! (Perfect way to productively procrastinate.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMarch 25, 2018 at 11:58 PM

    Wow! I'm impressed with your poem and how you have L.M.'s quote on the side. Thanks for sharing your thoughts today!

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownMarch 26, 2018 at 1:14 AM

    I whole-heartedly agree: This poem & the sentiment it expresses are both golden!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Betsy HubbardMarch 26, 2018 at 2:34 AM

    OoooOOoh! Yes, I. Love. This! Have you read any articles/books by Maja Wilson? She'd be a champion of what you are saying here. And, that last line...something I fight to change every year as I chip away at the compliant step by step non-thinkers to get back to that exploratory, creative, little mind that once was un-tampered with.

    ReplyDelete

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