Dan Ferri
Some poems visit you at sunset. Some haunt you in the wee hours with Jabberwocky logic because, let's face it, anything seems logical at 3AM. There are poems you reach for when a friend dies, when a marriage implodes, when gratitude washes away pain.
Dan Ferri's poem, Backwards Day, follows me down school hallways behind 7th graders hiding their faces in hoodies. It stands with me as I watch the kid who can't hold a pencil and whose school won't let him use a keyboard try to make a joke out of it. It sits on my knee in a kindergarten class while everyone else is sitting on the carpet. This poem is for those who would rather cartwheel than walk, draw instead of formulate equations, those who write, know how to harmonize, and problem solve.
Holidays, snow days, and low grade fevers should never happen on the weekend. This Saturday is Backwards day, and because of that, I was afraid it would be overlooked this year.
You know what this list is? It's a list of what proficiency tests do NOT measure. I found it in a book by Gerald Bracey, On the Death of Childhood and the Destruction of Public Schools (Heinemann 2003, in case you are looking for some light reading).
As we head into testing season (I know this because of schools that call asking for a visit "after the tests") I'm thinking maybe Backwards Day shouldn't be only an annual event like the 100th day of school or Dr. Seuss' birthday, but a holiday that we celebrate all year long.
Dan is a seasoned middle school teacher transplanted from Chicago to Canberra, Australia, and as such he knows schools, holidays, and isn't afraid to call out puppypoop when he sees it. Reprinted here with permission.
Backwards Day
Sometimes at school we have
a special day
We call it backwards day
Everyone wears their clothes
backwards
Or wears colors that clash
I have a modest proposal
Forget your silly backwards
hats and tee shirts
Forget this stripes and
checks together puppypoop
Let's get serious
Let's really shake school up
In math class, for homework
Describe the associative,
distributive, and
Commutative properties
In dance
Choreograph it, dance it,
show your work
Points off for clumsiness
In Social Studies, for
homework
Prepare two Civil War
marching songs, one North one South
Sing in four-part harmony,
show your emotion
Points off for flat notes
In English, for homework
Carve a sculpture that
expresses Hester Prynne's solitary courage
The cowardice of her lover
The beauty and strangeness
of her child
In Science, for homework,
Bring in a broken toaster,
doorknob, or wind-up toy
Fix it
You get extra credit for
using the leftover parts to make something new
Points off for reading the
directions
On the S.A.T.
Every one of the questions
Will be in haiku
You get two scores
One in whistling, and one in
Legos
No calculators
Let's take a stroll down the
hall
Let's see who is in the
learning disabilities classroom now
Will you look at all those
guys with pocket protectors
Sweating, slouching, and
acting out
Hey, no one cares that you can
divide fractions backwards in
your head buddy
You will stay right here and
practice interpretive dance steps till
you get it right
Will you look at all those
perfect spellers with bad attitudes
Look at those grammar
wizards with rhythm deficit disorder
What good is spelling gonna
do you
If you can't carry a tune
Toss a lariat
Or juggle?
You are going to stay right
here and do the things that you can't
Over and over, and again,
and again
Until you get them right,
Or until you give up
Quit school
And get a job
As a spell checker
At the A&P
~Daniel Ferri
