Love Letter to Albuquerque Schools

1. Love Letter to Albuquerque Schools Rapid Reading Review #1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4A6e8Rk8Oo&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active

2. Please take your designated seats • Do not talk, • No need for creativity here • Just the ability to fill in bubbles • No colors, • No drawings, • No poetry, • No music, • No individualism, • Just a checklist of bulleted statements while we work our way down the list • We seem more and more like sheep, • bouncing from standard to standard • We are the antithesis to this new era of standardized retardation • Slowing down the way you think • Every classroom comes fully equipped with a bucket for you to shit in • Regurgitate everything you’ve learned onto an answer sheet. • Do not look at any test but your own • No eating, no drinking • No cell phones, • No coughing, no sneezing • No laughing, no breathing • Just quiet.

3. Eyes on your own test • Fill in the bubbles completely. • My standards don’t consist of being put into a wooden desk • with my hands bent to fit the curve of the pencil. • Open your test to page one. • You may begin. • Our intelligence is measured with a number written across our foreheads • There are things we need to know to live. • But the system won’t ever know that we’ve learned them. • Private corporations make money off our low scores. • There sales are boosted from our ignorance. • They sit on a pedestal of trust funds and fancy degrees. • These companies teach us what to think, • Neo slaves, bolted to a machine • that grinds and spits their money out. • We’re taught in poor schools with a new revised whitewashed history book. • Kept from the truth. • We are their products, • not their students.

4. There were never enough books in the classroom. • Tattered, torn, tagged • Never enough money to replace them. • In our neighborhoods, more money was spent on removing graffiti, • a stronger police force • Because the crime rate was higher than our test scores. • Our critical thinking skills are turned to mud • we’re taught only what’s necessary to live in corporate America. • In math, I sat below and science dwindled below • In English, the bar sat just above proficient. • Now our report cards sit in a recycling bin. • Numbness runs through the body • straight through my fingers to the oval I’m bubbling in • Over and over again • Question after question. • We’re buried under academic letters and standards. • Tests that tell you what kind of person you will be. • We are made in black and white, • tinted to match a mold and molded to match a score.

5. Not a speck of individuality shines. • Living up to the standard of the world. • guiding everyone down a path of conformity. • Since when are the results in numbers? • You want to see how good we’re doing? • Walk through the inner city. • We’re put down, time and time again by rules and regulations, • guiding us to a duplicate destiny • Brainwashed and manipulated, • Trapped in a box of black and white routine • like ants in an ant farm, black dots digging holes • travelling down tunnels, close and consistent, • All following the exact same path as the one before itself. • It’s breaking us down • Pushing us into a hole deeper than our minds can fathom • To pull ourselves out. • When we are finally allowed to break away from our designated seats, • we stretch our limbs in all directions • Our fists will be raised. • Tuck that F word into your file folder • or your mountains of boxes • with repeated facts that state • whether or not we are drones to this cookie-cutter test. • I refuse to conform to a segregated education • Only I, • Only I, • Only I, • Only I , • Can determine who I am.

6. 1) The following line employs which literary device? • We seem more and more like sheep, • bouncing from standard to standard • A) allusion • B) metaphor • C) simile • D) personification

7. 2) Which of the following is most likely the definition of the word highlighted below? • We are the antithesis to this new era of standardized retardation • Slowing down the way you think • A) antagonist • B) the complete opposite • C) exactly the same • D) against themes or a thesis

8. 3) Which of the following best demonstrates the overall theme of this piece? • A) Schools in Albuquerque totally suck! • B) A rigid focus on standardized tests stifles creativity. • C) Traditional education is too narrow and fails to meet the needs of many students. • D) Both B and C

9. 4) Which of the following is not a metaphor? • A) We are their products, not their students. • B) Neo slaves, bolted to a machine that grinds and spits their money out. • C) Trapped in a box of black and white routine like ants in an ant farm • Our critical thinking skills are turned to mud

10. 5) Which of the following literary devices is being used? • We’re buried under academic letters and standards. • A) metaphor • B) personification • C) hyperbole • D) alliteration