Poem A Day: GPA (or, the limitations of numbers)

GPA (or the limitations of numbers)

I dislike the limitations of numbers.
The way, for example,
they are unwilling to account for
process or joy:
a nonreader becoming a reader,
a misunderstood metaphor suddenly making sense,
a spoken word poem.

I do like how pages add up--
Thirty-seven pages a week,
One hundred sixty-four pages a week,
Three hundred forty-seven pages a week--
the story of progress: six books 
on a TBR list, three more
waiting on a shelf.

But the school's law 
of averages,
whose sterile numbers are
added up and divided by time,
breed shadows of dissatisfaction
beneath learning's bright sun.

Sometimes the numbers drop.
Inexplicably, students fail to see
they were added somewhere.
Two hundred pages of Orwell probably
outweigh four hundred of James Patterson--
and who can put a value on
understanding the reference that
"Big Brother is watching you?"

There is imprisonment in a spreadsheet,
as it fails to unfold learning's story
box by box by box,
inside every crisp number
a story of success, failure, and struggle.

And I never fail to be surprised
by the gift of an odd student,
loosed at the end of twelve years;
all that time carefully divided out to a 
single number that weighs 
their worth and value.

4.0 years of college ahead.
3.0 years before adulthood.
2.0 more steps before the real world begins.
1.0 student stands on a precipice, watching the sun rise. 

I wonder, did all those numbers prepare them for this?

Inspired by Numbers, by Mary Cornish.