Teachers as Butchers

In some ways
teachers are like butchers –
instruments of violence,
yet strangely compassionate:
with pedagogical hacks
students are anesthetized
& arranged in stacks

Moving past superficiality,
expert teachers get down to the bones
and carve out assigned curricula
hopefully keeping students alive

No one obsessed with decorum
can teach transformatively:
deep change doesn't come
by merely doing what others wish to see.

Transformative instructors move beyond the flesh:
knowing time and patience
with gentle prodding
usually brings out the best.

Indeed, teachers can learn from butchers
who chop with precision
causing minimal pain

Satoru:	(shaking his head) This poem makes teachers seem like sadists!
Melissa:	Indeed, there is something strangely hyper-masculine, almost sociopathic about it. . . .
Devani:	Agreed. Butcher-teachers might be good for training soldiers. However, our planet needs more compassionate and caring human beings – not self-righteous jihadis ready to slice off anything with which they disagree.