My Grandmother Was Not in the Textbook

This poem reflects on the quiet forms of knowledge that often remain absent from formal schooling. Centered on the figure of a grandmother, it uses domestic and sensory images—measuring rice, sorting beans, reading the sky, and distributing food—to contrast standardized textbook knowledge with intergenerational learning. The poem asks whose knowledge becomes visible within official curricula and how children learn dignity, care, survival, and cultural interpretation through everyday practices at home. Rather than treating the grandmother as a nostalgic figure, the poem presents her as an informal educator whose embodied knowledge unsettles narrow definitions of literacy and expertise. In doing so, it contributes to anthropological conversations about education, cultural transmission, epistemic exclusion, and the relationship between home, school, and community‐based learning.