Tex Norman

Making the Grade (a poem)



Posted: Wednesday, January 28, 2009

by Tex Norman

;^)

Since leaving school I am not often

graded, but I very often grade myself

and I can be a rigid rigorous appraiser

of my performances, a joyful sadistic

scrutinizer with a wide red pen

feeling productive only from finding

fault, as if life were True/False,

as if every problem was corrected

by one answer only. With me there

is no partial credit, and what would

extra credit mean if I fail at the core

curriculum of me? Every moment is

an interim report:

Fathering Skills...........................F

Good Husband............................D-

Provider.......F-

(Is there a something lower than F?)

I know LIFE is more of a subjective

essay than an objective test. While

my life seems to be multiple choice

I rarely feel the right answer is

included in the list. My life has no

resemblance to a math problem

with set steps, a single formula, and

never more than a couple of ways

to find an answer. Why can't I

grade me using an S for Satisfactory

a U for Unsatisfactory, or, more

importantly, and E for effort?

Better yet, why not use smiley faces

and frowny faces, or perhaps I could

become one of those namby-pamby

teachers filled with compassion who

always grades on the curve.

Tex Norman is a social worker, currently working at the Oklahoma DHS Abuse and Neglect hotline. He interviews people reporting abuse and/or neglect of children and vulnerable adults and writes a narrative. The narratives (and demographics) are used to initiate investigations of the allegations. He says it is like writing 8 to 10 stories a day. In August 2012, he will have been married to Kathie for 40 years. He has a son Ryan who earned a PhD from Princeton and he is now a scientist doing research in molecular biology. Tex spends his free time working as an artist and writer. He has one art site, and a blog that might be of interest: http://tex-norman.artistwebsites.com/ and http://collagepoetrybytex.blogspot.com/
This Article has been viewed 174 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.