More About Bruce Choppin

They say Bruce was a mysterious man

he hired me in London to work in New York

at Teacher's College 

UNESCO paid

the key to it all was a new machine

the first of its kind in sixty-nine

a multiple-choice test marking machine 

that sensed marks made on cards by pupils

penciled dots that were their answers

pre-punched holes for schools and countries

comparing children's ability in school

Bruce sent me to Iowa City

to learn how to program the thing

then he set me to Sweden

to connect the dots 

hooking up this wonder machine

to a computer

It was a summer 

blue and yellow

working with Britt

Then data on tapes was sent to New York

to be mined for clues about why

children in Japan read better than elsewhere

or girls world-wide did better than boys

Sami said Bruce was a mysterious man

Maybe he did have such an air

After New York I lived faraway

at Roughside

Bruce visited 

brought Rachel

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

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