I
Among twenty thousand behavioral objects,
The only puzzling one
Was Mastery of Science of Reading.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a desk
On which there are three pencils.
III
The Science was in the publishing mist
A small part of the massive program.
IV
A child and a teacher
Are one
A child and a teacher and Learning
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer
The beauty of Science
Or the beauty of Reading
The student mastering Science
Or just after.
VI
Their Science filled the long blackboard
With barbaric scrawl.
The shadow of the student
Crossed it, to and fro.
The sense
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin publishers of tests,
Why do you assert Science?
Do you not see how learning
Lurks in the classrooms
Of these teachers about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the student is involved
In what I know.
IX
When any Science is acquired
It marks the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the thought of students
Mastering the Science of Reading,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He walks past classrooms
Without looking.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For Reading.
XII
Times are calling
Reading must be mastered.
XIII
It is competency time
It is testing
And it is going to test.
Drill drill drill
Test test test
Reading Science sits
With the publishers.
Note: With apologies to Wallace Stevens, who wrote “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.”
Susan Ohanian 