The Joy for Teaching Will Not Be on Social Media

This is a great poem I came across inspired by Gil-Scott Heron.

-Joaquin

http://happyteacherla.com/2010/10/18/joyforteachingwontbeonsocialmedi/

The Joy for Teaching Will Not Be on Social Media

You will not be able to stay home, sisters and brothers.
You will not be able to tweet, text and earn a badge.
You will not be able to lose yourself in the latest deeds by the latest pop star,
Because the joy for teaching will not be on social media.

The joy for teaching will not be on social media.
The joy for teaching will not be brought to you by Facebook, Twitter, 4square or your iPhone.
The joy for teaching will not show you pictures of Obama
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by Eric Holder, General Petraeus and John Biden to eat huevos rancheros confiscated from a cafe in Boyle Heights.

The joy for teaching will not be on social media.
The joy for teaching will not be brought to you by
Walden Media and will not star Angelie Jolie and Brad Pitt or Cartman and Kenny.
The joy for teaching will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The joy for teaching will not have Intel inside.
The joy for teaching not make you look ten pounds
thinner, because the joy for teaching will not be on social media, brothers and sisters.

There will be no pictures of you tagged with Mike Tyson
at the Price is Wrong (because the host of that show is still supposed to be Bob Barker and it’s weird that Drew Carey does it, though I did like his old show) jumping up and down with you because of the electric bicycle you just won.

The Huffington Post will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The joy for teaching will not be on social media.

There will be no YouTube videos of police arresting immigrants in Arizona
There will be no YouTube videos of police beating
people in MacArthur Park
There will be no Flickr pictures of Lawrence King being
shot down in an Oxnard Jr High school.

There will be no slow motion or Vimeo Video of Joaquin Cienfuegos strolling through South Central in a screen printed t-shirt from Self Help Graphics that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Glee, American Idol, and Mad Men
will no longer be so damned relevant, and
people will no longer care how many friends they have on Facebook or how many people follow them (or stop) on Twitter
because children will be in class
looking for something.
The joy for teaching will not be on social media.

There will be no highlights or reposts at www.xyz.com and no podcasts of Banksy’s art on an abandoned building in Detroit or of Sara Palin blowing her nose.

The theme song will not be written by John Mayer,
produced by P Diddy, nor sung by Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, Rihanna, or Taylor Swift
The joy for teaching will not be on social media.

The joy for teaching will not be up in 30 seconds after you click this pop up.
The joy for teaching won’t be about asian people or black people or latino people or native american people or white people or mixed raced people.
You will not have to worry about buying the wrong light bulb and causing Antarctica to melt, death from your new anti-depressant, or if your new mascara may in the future cause you cancer.

The joy for teaching will not go better with Coke.
The joy for teaching will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The joy for teaching will put you in the driver’s seat.

The joy for teaching will not be on social media, will not be on social media, will not be on social media, will not be on social media.

The joy for teaching will not be relinked over and over again by the LA Weekly, the LA Times, Gothamist, or the Huffington Post.

The joy for teaching will be live in the classroom, starting when you get up every weekday at 4am.

~Mrs. F

Dedicated to all those who have a joy for teaching.

Poem inspired by Gil-Scot Herons the Revolution Will Not be Televised