I sit here with my rear on a cold hard seat that matches my

cold hard attitude. The book that is in front of me is open

to a page that once again reviews the pythagorean theorem that

I will never ever use in my real life ever. I can see it in her eyes as

I look up to once again complain about how this wil never benefit me

in the real world, that no one will come popping out of an alleyway

demading me to recite the formula to find the area of a rhombus 

or they'll shoot me and steal my money. I can hear her sigh but I 

can see her silently agree with me, that she would much rather 

Teach us to balance a checkbook or budget our paycheck or how to

Shop for a car instead of going over the pythagorean teorem for tenth goddamn

Time that semester. I can almost hear her cursing about all those district tests

That people who don't know what they're doing, who don't know anything 

About teenagers sitting in a high school classroom devised to make sure the 

Mesa school system is at the top of their game. Who are we trying to fool?

We're not on top of anything. What we have is a mixture of those who have been 

Brainwashed by the educational system and those who have been beaten into the 

Ground. A big melting pot of people  who seem like they get everything

handed to them because they got all the good grades and did all the homework and

were on all the sports teams and starred in all the musicals and the people who really 

do want to try and be given a second chance but never really get it because they 

seem to already have a been given  a stereotype, a reputation that they must fit

and wear as a dirty old jacket with faded torn-up jeans and busted up shoes

in the back of the class. I can see it in her eyes as she stands in the front of the

Class writing on that whiteboard more formulas and numbers and problems that

her twenty-seven sixth hour students will never truly understand, but they must 

be taught over and over because it will be on the big test. She knows that

life does not end with a test to prove to the district that you've taken all the notes. 

Life ends suddenly out of nowhere most of the time, and life is not organized into 

six different classes throught the day, color coded notes and labeled folders. It's

messy and disorganized and unpredictable. She knows that at the end of the

day the homework you did will have no importance as you sit with your future children

at the dinner table on a Tuesday night having a deep conversation

about how we have all come to be alive on this planet.  She knows that the 

tests you failed in her class will have no gathering thoughts in your head

as you lie in bed alone in your dormroom, not sure what to do 

because you have just given your virginity to a handsome boy you met at

a party. She knows that your parents won't be recollecting every missed

assignment you refused to do as you walk across that stage and

accept your diploma, pride welling up in their eyes. She also knows that you are not

taking the notes she's writing, but instead drawing a picture that she thinks

is a product of great talent. She knows that the way things are done in

schools makes you angry because it tends to make you feel like you're

never going to do anything right. But she also knows that you are bright.

She knows that each student is intelligent in their own way, and she is 

rooting all of us on, to pursue what makes us happy. But she can't tell us that, because

she has to make sure we know and understand the pythagorean theorem. She isn't 

being mean or cruel in giving us these lessons, but rather she is making sure our future

is a little bit more easier to obtain. I can see her telling me this, asking me to please

understand that she understands, that someday we'll realize why we are forced to

sit in cold classrooms taking endless notes out of dusty old textbooks. She 

wants the best for us, for every single student she's come across. She wants to make

sure we understand why we are going over the pythagorean theorem for the tenth time

that semester.