The Kids Are Alright, Shorecrest Edition

Kate's poem began: "It is these pink watered mornings / and the sweet limpid breath of all the / things that open: flowers, eyes and hands -- / that make me sorry for / what I've never done," while Bruce's limerick dispensed with the funny: "The Iron Law of Oligarchy / describes exactly what is to be / when an idealized rule / no matter how cool / succumbs to the power hungry."

Camille's declared, "Little things / are not as big as / Big things," which is just the kind of clarity and push-off you're always looking for. There was Roxana on the cookie and the Truth, Rosie on Iceland, Joanne on caffeine addiction, and Nina on blood sugar levels. There were poems about breaking up, getting together, online romance, the nursery home, growing up, growing old. There was the war. There was algebra.

Finally, Corbin let loose with something equal parts Eminem and Ginsberg, conducting an interrogation of translation and disease as metaphors, jumping from high school to refugee camps -- pulling everyone along as he worked through his notion about "the language of human." The room erupted with whoops and applause.

We mention this because so much of what we read about high school kids has to do with how good they are at filling in small bubbles with pencils. (The obsession with standardized testing is driven by a potent illusion: that what can be measured about knowledge is predictive of success in life.) But what was remarkable to us was how eager the kids were to read or sing, to hear what each other had to say. If we were a betting person, we'd put our money on these kids themselves, their self-understanding, creativity, and willingness to put themselves out there.

It's their education. The primary purpose for it is not for government or bureaucracy to count more easily. Or, as Helen put it:

This last haiku should
leave you in tears or laughter.
I must disappoint.