Look at this big, beautiful body

Look at this big, beautiful body.

Arms big enough to hold all love,

Soft, curvy body built for endurance.

Strong legs for life's long journey.

This body is so much more than a shape.

Look again - what do you see?

The Anatomy of Loss

How do you grieve, my dear?
I tried to freeze the nerves,
to shutter every window
until the ache ran dry.

How do you grieve, my dear?
I turned the blade inward,
then outward -
wounding the very hands
that reached out to hold mine.

How do you grieve, my dear?
I let the memory of warmth go cold.
I unlearned the language of light
until I forgot that love
was ever a place I lived.

How do you grieve, my dear?
I am a riot of ghosts;
I dance, I howl, I laugh
until the sound turns into a scream
and the scream turns into a prayer.

How do you grieve, my dear?
I poisoned the garden to kill the weeds.
I tried to logic pain
only to find that grief
is the only thing left alive.

Rain, here and there

 
The city rain blurs my window,
as I sit caged at work -

Back home, the rain fell different:
still wet, still damp, but alive -
the downpour's song, my mother's voice,
steam curling from our tea -
a warmth that sustains memory.

Same rain, same ache,
but only one place taught the sky
how to feel like home.

Showpiece

the yellow china sets
in my mother's shelf
locked behind glass
not used. not dusted.
just there - to say:
we have this.

I too - the lone foreign face
in a strange town
paraded, trophied,
a token of kindness,
just a showpiece.

years press cracks
into porcelain skin
dust settles, smiles fade
still here, displayed,
never touched, never belonged.

#poem #minority

Rest Is Resistance

They auction your exhaustion,
call it hustle -
but your pulse is a protest song
they cannot copyright.

Let your spine unspool like a ribbon.
Let your thoughts dissolve like sugar
in the tea you sip, unhurried,
while the world screams more.

"Rest is the new productivity" -
lie of the century.
Rest is the end of productivity.
That’s the point.

The most radical thing you’ll ever do?
Nap with the fury of a stopped clock.

#poem

A prayer for a friend

In a quiet corner of the old church,

where shadows flicker on timeworn stones,
I cast a weave of whispered prayers for you,
A tapestry of pleas and wishes; weaving
a guardian angel to watch over you.

Each delicate silky thread of prayers,
Woven with countless hopes and wishes,
Forms an armor of protective shield,
May they protect and rejuvenate you,
Like a miracle conspired by the universe.

With each whispered prayer, our wishes take flight,
For health renewed and strength returned.
Our prayers, a heavenly manifestation,
Brighter days await you tomorrow.
Get well soon, my dear friend.

Rebellion in Pajamas

Dawn tiptoes and peeks through the curtains,
And my alarm blares "Rise and shine, for
Life awaits beyond the comfort of your bed!"
Yet my leaden body bed me down like an anchor,
As I wonder, should I rise or should I starve?
And why must I merely survive, when I can live?

Uncomfortably, I linger in slumber's embrace,
While reality waits, tapping its impatient foot.
My body, oh, it's no clockwork machine!
It carved rest, pajamas, blankets and pillows,
To oil the gears and cogs of my tired soul,
For sometimes 'living' wears pajamas.

And when I finally rise, reluctant yet renewed,
I know this truth: Rest is rebellion,
A quiet revolution against the grind,
A reminder that living transcends survival.

The Summer Breeze

The deathly stares of the summer sun
Piercing through the dense green leaves
Unearthing the bones hidden beneath
In the stillness of the scorching air
Burning the body to torment my soul
Yet the chaotic struggle is my peace
For I have accepted the toll.

     The sun may cause my skin to burn
     But within my spirit takes its turn
     To rise above the pain and strife
     And find a calm within this life
     Standing strong and true
     To find peace in all I do.

The Winter Calls Me Home

Sure as the season changes and winter sets

Like basic instinct kicks the birds to migrate, 

My instinct calls me to the mountains

To the cozy nest that my parents built

Linger I never, to heed that call

Sure as the winter calls, 

I'll surely be heading home

For within that little nest lays

All the love in the world for me

All the hopes and dreams -dead and alive

All the memories that weighted and lifted me

For I'm made whole by those yins and yangs

And sure as the season changes, 

I'll always have a place in that nest! 

Hope - Seed

Hidden beyond in the shadow

In the damp earth that lights neglect

Where the grimes of dead lives collect

Spring life from the dead dried seed

An Eulogy for a Torn Jean

Your time has come

Dear old friend denim,

May we part in the light

That you're my absolute favourite!

Thank you for the snug fitting,

For you have been my second skin.

Like a yawn widely stretching,

Embracing a weight ever-changing.

Irony is that I tear you,

When I'd rather cling on to you

For I have so loved you!

Lamentation - An old friend

What do you do when you heard of the death of a childhood sweetheart that odds and time and space parted?

Do you blame yourself for not mending your friendship with a simple 'hello' or a quick phone call in the decade it takes to gradually die?

Do you wonder if they also occasionally snoop on your social media to check-up on you but never having the courage to reconnect?

Do you wonder if you still matter to them the same way they matter to you even though you haven't let them know?

Do you wonder if they know that you still love and care about them even though the kind of love may have changed?

Do you wonder if they know that despite everything, that you'll grief and mourn for them?

Because I do...against my wishes, I do!

Home

Dancing around potholes in the cobbled street
Sneezing with every swiveling clouds of dust
Home they said is all in the heart,
Luckily, the heart doesn't have eyes. 
But does home sound like the heart?
Or like the whistle of the winds on the tin roof,
Or the constant humming of the crystal creek? 
Like the heavy footsteps of the tired labourers
Or like the sound of the tired hoe attacking the barren soil? 

Home is like my old and tired mother 
A hidden world of safety and comfort
Struggling yet strong
Dying yet thriving
Hopes abound
Content! 

Traces of You

Wherever I am, 

Wherever I go, 

I find traces of you

In the lines of a song

In the rays of a sunset

In the sounds of the rain

In random laughter 

On Sundays

And prayers

And many daily things

To my walls

Dear walls, you have seen and heard everything, 

and I know you have seen me at my worst 

but have you ever seen me at my best, 

for I can't remember. 

You have seen me break-down into silent sops of forsaken nightmares 

but how often have you heard my laughter? 
-Remind me now, for I need to know that all were not black. 

Dear walls, you've seen me love and hate with the same fire, 

tell me what do I wear better? 

Tell me if I look better with tears soaked angry smiles 

or with the lifeless smile of a rotting spirit? 
-Remind me now, for I need to know that all were not as bad. 

Dear walls, you've seen me slip into the wide open arms of self hate 

and crawl through the filth of existence to a semblance of life, 

tell me why do you stay still? 

Tell me, dear wall, that there is a reason still of why you and I are here still. 
- Remind me now, for I need a reason to live another day. 

The Old Oak Tree

 Upon that old oak tree where the songbirds sing

Wherein my childhood laid I upon it's flatten branch 

To gaze upon the blurring horizon beyond my reach

Dreamt I a world sweeter than the songbirds' songs

Upon that old oak tree where the songbird nest

Wherein I dreamt away the grim childhood of my reality

For a moment of peace undiluted by the cares of the world

Dreamt I while tearing the fresh saplings off the old oak tree

Upon that old oak tree where the songbird hatch

Lay I as the hatchling fed as I have never been

Pass I all the cares of this world as life leave me to hatch

Dreamt I of life as my rotting flesh feed the old oak tree

My Head

I screamed to the void in my head
Asking existential questions to
The tangled mess of the past, and
To the blurry promises of the future

But in all fairness, my dear soul
Why do I fear an answer, 
Why do even an echo seems scary
Yet the eerie silence provokes me

Perhaps I do not look for answer
In the chaotic present that I resent. 
As the vicious agonist is my head
Yet a spot of paradise is my head!

Happy Teachers Day

After the funeral

(with Mom, waiting for Dad)

When all is said and done, and when all the tears are wept,
in the aftermath of the funeral; alone here we are, you and I
choking upon our tears and words; watching the teapot burn
waiting, as if the crowing rooster will bring better news,
upon the hearth, we await, the morning dawn, silently.

Unlike us -the sun, the moon; they didn't change their ways -
the day is as bright, and the night is as dark, as always,
Here again, alone, upon the hearth we sit - you and I -
wary of the bellows, of the lost calves, unconscientiously
as if they were to herald a news, that dad is back,
eyeing the closed door - continuously, suspiciously.

Time passed, or so they say; and back to our routine, we try
and in the midst, we thought of the abnormality of our day -
as if the sky broke, the bitter undigested tears, it rains -
a thousand knives, stabbing our heart, sobbing a riot,
-it's real, it's true, that Dad will never be back again...

Child-Friendly Assessment

In one of my earlier post, I talked about the need for assessment of learning, and that assessment need not necessarily be a burden.  Just to clarify again, assessment starts the moment we first interact with the child and ends when the child left.  It’s a continuing process, and how you used the findings will determine its importance.

Assessment can be done through our daily observations, activities and interactions with the child.  However, our education system also demands a child to go through some form of written paper-pencil test which are most often standardized, and this is where the issues and gross misunderstanding of assessment arises.

A written paper-pencil test, especially those of the summative nature, are often large-scale, standardized, and more often than not, assesses only the recall and retrieval ability of the child.  Such assessments are a burden and can even have major implication on the self-esteem of the child.   It’s no wonder standardized assessment are often seen negatively because it assumes that every child learns in the same way, took away the autonomy of the child and the teachers, and reduces the whole being of an individual into statistics. 

But large-scale standardized assessment must not be confused with individual assessment (worth of a being) as it has its own objectives and usage.  They are meant to be quantified, and it has its due share of benefits. Large-scale standardized assessment, if designed objectively and executed methodically can yield several benefits, such as: ensuring accountability of the delivery system, monitoring performances at various stages/levels of the schooling system, informing educational policy and planning, facilitating better teaching-learning processes through instructional diagnosis and generating a discourse on quality of student learning.

Large-scale Assessment has often been misused that it has become an exacting experience for the students and the teachers.  Students are habituated to an assessment that can only lead to stress, marking, pass or fail, and a tension for their future. Large-scale standardized assessment must veer-off from that perception, and one way to do that is to adopt a child-friendly approach of assessment.

Child-friendly assessment is a concept that can be defined simply as the deliberate process of administrating a contextualized assessment in a stress-free environment through a friendly process. Child-friendliness must start from the conceptualization of the tools that we used for assessment, on how we present the reports and how we used it.

Child-friendly assessment is a deliberate process, and every aspect of it must be though-out before starting.  It begins from the tool development process till how we choose to present the data at the end.

Elements of Child-Friendliness in the Tool of Assessment:

• Tool must have Diverse questions types with more MCQs than constructed responses: MCQs can cover broad topics, can easily detect misconception and misunderstanding, are more reliable and ease the checking process; while we need few constructed responses to test the depth of understanding.
• Tool must take into account the aptitude and capabilities of the children: The structure, language used, and content of stems are derived from the existing syllabus considering its age-appropriateness.
• Tool must take into account the experiences of the child: The constructed responses must focus on the child’s narrative of their life experiences.
• Tool must respect and acknowledge the social and cultural context of the child: The tools are designed to ensure context appropriateness, and sensitively includes examples and contents from each area of where the tools are administrated.
• Tool must respect and accommodate the prior knowledge and experiences of the child: Besides asking questions that are directly related to the experience of the child, it also asks them question related to topics which they have covered previously.
• Tool must have simple language and design: The papers are designed in such a way that it minimizes room for confusion (eg. No questions are broken across pages, differentiation between number and stems, consistency in formatting and wording, and proper instructions), have illustrations and pictures to make it more attractive.
• An Exhaustive Rubrics for Constructed responses: The rubrics or answer key must consider the child’s point of views.  The tool developer must pilot their tools before finalizing it, exploring all possible ways a question can be answered.  The child’s point of view on an issue will come within a context, and such views must also be assessed from that point of view.

Elements of child-friendliness in Practices and Processes of Administration:

• Be very selective of the Assessor: Be very selective of who you select as assessors.  You don’t want random people to go to school to administer the assessment.  We want someone who is approachable, pleasant and friendly to children, and have had experience of working with children before, and have had basic introduction to the various concept of education.  We also want that person to be able to comprehend the process of tool administration and maintain data quality.
• Emphasis on training of assessors: Assessors must be thoroughly trained for every processes and practiced for a number of days. The training must include mock-sessions for every key process like how to introduce yourself to the schools and students, how to introduce your tool to the students, what to say to the students to assure the students and reduce their stress, how to build rapport with the students, etc.
• Rapport-building with the students: Make it compulsory for the assessor to focus on rapport building with the institution and the children before starting the assessment.
• Have a set of what to do and what not to do: Train your assessors on a set of good practices that includes what to do and what not to do, how to speak, how to behave, and even appearance.
• Focus on reducing the stress/tension in the assessment location: Train your assessors on how to assure the students that the assessment is not an assessment of their worth and talk about how one can change our destinies.
• Reading of Questions: In Primary school, the questions could be read-out by the assessors (just have a separate instruction manual on what to read and not to read, and which word to emphasize, based on the objective of each of the questions).
• Defined Process: Have a well-defined process for tool adminstration that is also documented as a manual and can be referred to by the assessors at all time and ensure that the assessors adhere to the manual.

Large-scale assessments are always expensive, as such it usually come with specific objectives.  They are mostly summative in nature, but many parts of the tools must be used formatively.  Doing assessment only for quantification purpose should be a crime, it’s not fair at all.  The data has so much potential to enhance the learning, so the findings must invariably go back to the teacher so that she can deal with the misconceptions and other challenges.

As we can seen from the above, standardized assessment can be versatile and can also be used for formative purposes also, however, standardized assessment has its own specific objective, as such, a teacher must refrain from using tools of such standardized assessment for assessing their own students, except for preparing them for such assessment. 

No one knows the students better than a teacher, and the teacher is the only qualified person to design a more contextualize tools. Consider the level and context of your child when designing, ask them question in a way they can fully understand what is being asked of them, focus on critical thinking and analyzing misconception, and most importantly, use the findings. 

It is in human’s nature to always want to know if they have achieved their objectives or not. Assessment is done basically because we have objectives.  And all our institutions that sets out with specific objectives, want to see if they are progressing as per their expectation, where and when they need to do course correction, and what remedial issues need to be taken.  Standardize assessment is here to stay, in school and outside school,  and we need to ensure that the tools we used and the processes we followed doesn’t add to more stress for our students.