“Here in America vs Freire”

As stated by me many times before, I am a poet, so I consume a lot of poetry. This poem, “Here in America” by Rhiannon McGavin, Zariya Allen, and Belissa Escobedo recently came up on my video suggestions on YouTube, and circles around the education system here in the US, the main point being the greatest lessons taught are ones we don’t remember learning. The poem illustrates various attitudes done in class and reflected on the real world, such as being taught to bite your tongue and its relationship to censorship and schools controlling what students say and think, and that silence is better and preferred over making someone uncomfortable. The poem also touches on the theme of hypocrisy, such as when kids refer to students of color as “ghetto” and “not talking right” before listening to the same music they teased those students for liking. The last few lines of the piece standout for me, and asks “what did you learn in school today?” before the girls repeat a series of commands and actions (don’t speak, keep your head down, eyes on your own paper, and such) before closing the poem by saying, “Every state in America the greatest lessons are the ones you don’t remember learning.” This poem ties into Freire’s theory about the student-teacher relationship, but then extends to that beyond the classroom, and it makes for a very powerful piece.

Here’s the link if you’d like to watch it (They were on the Queen Latifah show!)