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MP3
MP3 3.4 MB • 128 kbps • 3:42
Lyrics
They come to me daily with
Bright smiles
Open arms
And eyes filled with hope,
Eyes that want to learn more
And grow more,
But you
Don’t give them that choice
Your pushing 3rd grade work
In front of an 11year olds face
Still wondering
Why this child
Cannot read or write
Maybe,
Just maybe
It’s because you’re a Caucasian teacher
Trying to understand an immigrant Mexican child
Who having lived in this country now for 2 years
Still cannot speak English well enough to get him by
And you classify him as a “special needs” child
When the only special needs this child has
Is wanting to wake up every morning with a smile
Because all he knows
Is going home to an one bedroom apartment
Where 8 other people live with in it
No peace and quiet for study time
So he comes to me after-school
After-school,
Where he and they
Open up their little hearts to me
Intrusting me to help get them through their daily fix of
Math,
Reading,
And writ.ing,
Still letting them breathe and
Be free
Being that no one else will
All I hear is
“My day school teacher doesn’t understand
That at home I have to take care of the babies
And mommy can’t read English
So I need you to help me”
The only thing you see
Are parents who don’t care,
When their parents are struggling to get by
You prefer to blame the parents
Rather than blame yourself
For not trying to educate yourself well enough
On how to get through to these child.ren
You are the teach-er
Not willing to teach-her how to spell her name
Because you can’t translate your lesson plan
When 90% of the children in your school
Are of Latino decent
This is a title one claimed school
And just in case you were unaware of that,
That means that the majority of the children
Are failing
And don’t meet the city’s standards
And you are not meeting the children’s standards as an educator
Because the only education you are concerned with
Is the one that arrives in your bank account every 1st and 15th of the month
Then you have the nerve to look upon me with disgust
When they leave your care
And start acting like normal children
When they
Come
To
Me
Because I provide them with education and freedom all at once
No longer are they looking up to you
As a role model they’d like to be
The language barrier cuts far too deep
That you’ve become just another uncaring face
Unwilling to help them through their needs
The standards for becoming an educator
Has been lowered
Because of the level of education you are providing
No I’m not just speaking to you
Only through the eyes of these children
Although for some,
It could suffice
But because I with my own eyes
Am a product of this system
And I survived proudly
I survived your untruthful,
Uncaring,
And unlawful ways
But tell me something
How many of them will?
How many of them are going to graduate high school?
How many of them are going to drop out as soon as they turn 16?
This is the road you lead them on
Once you lose faith in them
They lose faith in themselves
And we are left with another generation
Of lost souls
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