Creativity tends to be a major strength in dyspraxic adults and young people alike, as we can think “outside the box” in highly valuable ways. These ways might include, but are in no way limited to, creativity in art, music, and our use of language. Creative writing can be a cathartic practice for all of us, particularly in testing times, and I know that this is certainly the case for other dyspraxics too. When you are pushed to your limits, your struggle can fuel a creative energy that enables others to feel and connect with your experience. My students sharing their own powerful poems on handouts in the staffroom this week has motivated me to do the same.
This first poem is entitled “Corridors of coping”, and expresses some of the logistical challenges involved in starting as a teacher this September.
Corridors of coping
armed with dog-eared downside-up seating plans
scrawled with hieroglyphs that hold your gaze –
today’s performance is masked by a face drenched
in sanitised regrets. i only tried to
sanitise my mind, yet my mind is a magnet
for lost words stuck down the back of yesterday’s trimmer.
i misread my timetable and arrived five minutes late,
asking you to fill in today’s missing pages,
not to fill the room with your fits of giggles.
but i can decipher the codes clues to your
barrier to learning familiar to my own barrier to teaching
for i am the teacher who catches you
dropping to the floor without a back-up plan
like a pile of clumsy papers lost along the
one-way maze at rush hour on a weekday.
i am the teacher tired of pacman-style manoeuvers
that create chaos in the corridors of not coping.
i aim to be the teacher who builds a bridge past the haze,
that unexpected rare breed of teacher, like the
novelty of a poem unfinished
misspraxic © 2020
As always, feel free to get in touch with your thoughts or any questions via the website and do take care everyone,
– misspraxic
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