Please don't show my daughters a bar graph(2)

Please don't show my daughters a bar graph

Colored red green or gold

With itemized sections detailing her growth.

Please don't show her the words

Unsatisfactory

Or average

Or even above

These are grown up words

And I'll tuck them in my pocket

And reflect on them 

As a parent should

But please don't show my eight year old

Any charts and graphs

Made to display her knowledge or lack thereof.

Instead,

Show her picassos colors

His cubes and blues 

And see if she has a color

That shy would like to try to turn into a period.

Then take the drawing that she painstakingly

Marked and erased and redrew

And hold it up next to a Surrealistic brightness

That will make her own look upside down and 

Find it's greatness.

Please do not show her

Data

Scores

Means and modes

Instead,

Show her Fibonacci's flowers

And honeycombs

Discuss the ideas of outliers

 And let her try to reinvent the clock.

Who thought of 60 anyway

And what if time could stop?

Please do not ask her

To bubble in a test

Or stay in lines

And if she must

Then please take the test outside 

And not under a stale light next to a window with recess calling.

Take her mind

And mold it,

Teach it -- yes

But please don't show her

Anything standard.

Instead, let her show you

Everything that isn't.

When she picks up the turtle and sees its feet keep crawling

Let her discover why

His head pops in and out.

And what if Her dog could do it to?

Let her try.

And please

Let her fail.

Let her flop.

Even, some days, let her cry.

But please let's not have it be

For  percentage

For a 4 question standardized benchmark mess

With size 8 font and illogical wording

And randomized information

From a short selection she has just read.

Make her read read read

And then let her write write write

But not with itemization and standardization

When her thoughts are so wanting to soar.

Give her a character to love

And a kite to fly at recess 

Have her do it

On her own-

And make her see that she can't.

Then play some music and have her decide 

Which song sounds like her favorite story.

Show them how our cores are common

But how our minds defy definition.

Make small hands make sense of the world

By touching soil and seeds.

Let them discover plants will grow

Even if they don't believe.

For ther is power in defiance

And childhood should be about

Exploration, questions, and guidance

Not testing or alignment.

Please, show my daughter the world

And nothing less.