By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Irene Ueda said she thought of one specific student when she wrote the last line of her poem.

Ueda teaches eighth-grade English at Stevenson Middle School. Right now, her students are studying Greek mythology and preparing for the standards test. Ueda is also taking classes at UH-Manoa, working toward her master's degree in middle-level education.

She says her job is very satisfying, but when she says this, she laughs because she knows the difference between what people think being a teacher is like and what it really means every day.

Every day, it's daunting. Teachers have to wear so many hats, she says. But when she thinks of that one student — each student she has taught — she remembers anew why she became a teacher.

Last June, Ueda and three other teachers took a writing workshop from Bamboo Ridge, the venerable publishing house that has been at the forefront of supporting literature by and about Hawai'i's people. The workshop was administered by UH Outreach College and supported in part by the State Foundation for Culture and the Arts and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Bamboo Ridge editor and poet Eric Chock taught the class. He asked the teachers to use creative phrasing techniques to express how they feel about their profession. Ueda's poem was published in the Bamboo Ridge Press newsletter:

Yeah, you're not perfect,

why should you be my kid's teacher?

I breathe the sound of

3-ring binders

and survive an attack of questions

hurled at me, several mouths at a time.

I jam phrases, facts, details into 55-minute sections

and 10-minute writings.

I permanently wrinkle brains of students —

like Frankenstein, I create madly,

not sure if the monsters would be hurt or helped.

I check and unwind crazy, outrageous phrases,

like "flashing a naked cow."

I inhale a scoop of potato salad, choke down some kalua pig and spinach,

the starch and the salt

lying in my intestines for the next 2 hours.

I trundle around playing rent-a-cop for 20 minutes,

imaginary nightstick and badge displayed,

having to unknot riddles within sensitive, watery-proud eyes

and clenched fists,

with gentle half-smile and water-soft voice as my only shields.

I scamper to the conference room

so I will not be late for the de-evolved irate bipeds

who scar me, snarl at me, accuse me of being "less than perfect"

and take juicy bites out of my heart and spirit.

I want to scream at them

the words they use to blame, to hurt

but I take the insults and look them in the eye

with my inner dragon silently uncurling.

At times I want a silk handkerchief

to cry into, to comfort myself,

and to stick on top of my red pen to wave surrender.

And at 4:30, when the campus has almost emptied,

my heels clack downstairs,

I haul a small redwood forest in my bag to harvest at home.

When I spin out of my stall,

a sweaty student trudges by, with basketball cradled in hand.

He smiles, white teeth in dirt-hot skin,

"Bye Miss!"

and I heave a tired sigh and smile back.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.