A Conflict of Worldviews - (EDIT1)

[kolemath]

EDIT 1
Smart Asians

Classrooms in Japan,
students study math,
science, history, engineering,
any subject, teacher says.
"頑張る (Ganbaru)."
頑: Gan means stubborn, firm, and resolute.
張: Ba means claim, insist, and pull.
る: Ru, to make or do.
Fraction to a decimal?
頑張る (Ganbaru).
The bombs of WWII?
頑張る (Ganbaru).
If subject matter kicks their asses,
students must persist in thinking.
IQs are irrelevant.

Classrooms in America,
students study math,
science, history, engineering,
any subject matter, teacher says,
"Try your best." 
If the students fail?
Their brains are slow, IQs are low
and not cut out for school.
Drop out and find employment.
Back breaking, laboring fools.





A Conflict of Worldviews
 
“I’m stupid.”
 
Yes, you are, the teacher thinks back.
 
"Why
can’t you can’t spell or punctuate
still?" a student hears again
on the last day of school
before dropping out. 
 
The Japanese have a word
—頑張る: Ganbaru
頑 - stubborn, firm, resolute (Gan)
張 - insist, claim, pull (ba)
る - do, make (ru).
 
Pull yourself up firm and insist
on standing resolute! Claim it! Do it!
 
Yet, back home the message:
 
You’re not smart naturally. It’s not
your fault you can only break your back
for life.
 
If the student had heard
Ganbaru
from a voice that believed,
what might have been achieved?
 

[Todd]

Hi kolemath, 

I've been struggling a bit with this one. Let me try to walk you through my thoughts. The content reminds me an old educational experiment I heard where teachers were told that a class was gifted and they overperformed, and other teachers were told that a class was performing behind grade and that class too lived up to those expectations. The classes were average and it was the teacher's belief and engagement that was the difference.

So it's the teacher's belief that is the key point to your poem.

The major issue I had was I felt the poem lacked immediacy and also came across a bit prescriptive and slightly preachy. In trying to deal with those issues, I came up with a possibility. Perhaps change your title to your current second line: "Yes, you are, the teacher thinks back" and then rewrite from a position of student reaction/teacher implied response from the title. This may allow you to recapture immediacy and lock everything in the back and forth play between the two.

So, I'm mostly saying try an extreme structural change and see if it can push your idea more fully.

I don't know if that would be helpful, but it was the first idea I had after reading through this a number of times.

Best,

Todd

A Conflict of Worldviews
 
“I’m stupid.”
 
Yes, you are, the teacher thinks back.
 
"Why
can’t you can’t spell or punctuate
still?" a student hears again
on the last day of school
before dropping out. 
 
The Japanese have a word
—頑張る: Ganbaru
頑 - stubborn, firm, resolute (Gan)
張 - insist, claim, pull (ba)
る - do, make (ru).
 
Pull yourself up firm and insist
on standing resolute! Claim it! Do it!
 
Yet, back home the message:
 
You’re not smart naturally. It’s not
your fault you can only break your back
for life.
 
If the student had heard
Ganbaru
from a voice that believed,
what might have been achieved?
 

[Erthona]

I'm also have trouble with this. Except for the rhyming couplet at the end there is nothing very poetic about this; it is more rhetoric, which is where the preachiness comes in. I like Todd's idea about immediacy.
________________________________________________________________________
“I’m stupid.”

Yes, you are, the teacher thinks back. (what narrative stance allows us to know this as this is obviously something that occurred in the past. Very awkward)

"Why
can’t you can’t spell or punctuate  (I think it could do without the "still" as it is implied by what follows. Also, here the the indirect object "a" is used (a student), except this seems to be referring to a single student.)
still?" a student hears again
on the last day of school
before dropping out.

The Japanese have a word
—頑張る: Ganbaru
頑 - stubborn, firm, resolute (Gan)
張 - insist, claim, pull (ba)
る - do, make (ru).

Pull yourself up firm and insist
on standing resolute! Claim it! Do it!   (Sounds like a blip for some sports commercial. Pretty sure "Do it" is a Nike phrase)

Yet, back home the message:   (Who is back home and who is talking to whom?)

You’re not smart naturally. It’s not
your fault you can only break your back
for life.

If the student had heard
Ganbaru
from a voice that believed,
what might have been achieved? (This seems overly simplistic. Either the child is of lower intelligence, or does not apply him/herself, but it is doubtful that such a blurb is going to bring spiritual awakening to the latter, and no amount of sermonizing will help overcome the latent physical liabilities of the first. Certainly a positive environment may have a good effect, but no one knows what will cause the light bulb to come on.)
________________________________________________________________________________________
So yeah, In the end it seems like just so much sophistry like pull yourself up by your own boot straps, the narrator jumps all over the place and it is more rhetoric than poetry.

Best,


dale

[kolemath]

Thanks for the responses, Todd and Dale.  Right when you think something's good, take it the forum, and, well, it's not.  Thanks for the eye opener.  Now, to a revision....

[QDeathstar]

Not really a critique but a comment..
To me, ganbaru seems central to this piece but although you define it, for some reason I feel like the actual meaning is different than the words you scattered, from them I get 'be stubborn" but maybe you mean "be persistent" but your words aren't clear...

[kolemath]

Posted an edit for this one.  I tried to clean up the meter and come off less pretentious and preachy.  I'm a little uncomfortable with the title because its a blatant stereotype, but I'm hoping the bigger allusion cleans up any pejorative suspicions