The Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Atheist …
Everyday, walking the classroom's threshold
We pray to be delivered from
The menace of caprice
In a land governed by misery
And only trace elements of our existence
With nothing but a chalk
backbone for the onslaught
The gunfight
The fire
The explosion
The educational cataclysm
That will leave the classroom
Scattered in doom
Books, bodies and minds with
Words and dreams
Obliterated beyond recognition
…pray for us teachers now
and at the hour of our test,
Mon May 18, 2015 at 4:42 AM PT: Responding to comments re: EVERY TEACHER PRAYS: I too am not "religious" in the church-going, bible reciting vein but - that day I went to my classroom and found my door surrounded by teenage boys all draped in the confederate flag as the only African-American teacher in the building - you better believe I prayed - to be delivered from violence & ignorance. It's been said - there are no atheists in foxholes.
Fri Jul 10, 2015 at 5:52 AM PT: TO: Iamgumby -- A sense of humor would help here --- I am not making a value judgment re: those who pray and those who don't. Actually this is my take (educationally speaking - as a teacher for 25 years) on the old saw - "there are no atheists in a foxhole" i.e. in the heat of battle, everyone is religious. I am not religious but I did pray at the times my high school English students were tested by the state of New York. Just FYI. It matters not whether you recommend just that you "get it"