The State of State Testing

The state administers mandated standardized testing to all students during a given window of opportunity. Based upon the results of that testing, schools are “graded,” performance is rated, and success/failure assigned. We’ve just completed our mandated testing, and I can’t wait to see the results.

Kids are clever, especially when they either don’t want or don’t care about what is being done. There is no one on the face of the Earth who can make a student do what he or she is committed not to do, the same way that there is no one on the face of the Earth who can stop a student from doing what he or she is determined to do.

As I walked the aisles every 5 minutes, I kept check on progress through the multiple choice questions. At the end of the first 10 minutes of the math section, many of the students were already into the 20s, an amazing feat at best, but more honestly an indicator that they were randomly bubbling 2 questions per minute, which is pretty much standard operating practice during state testing.

I stopped at each desk, cautioned the bubbling student to take the test seriously, to stop the random bubbling, but all that did was encourage more creative bubbling.

I watched as the kids stroked their chins, twirled their hair, fidgeted with the pencil, made amorphous drawings on the scratch paper, in an effort to show determined concentration. Then, when they thought the coast was clear, they would bubble in 3-4-5 consecutive answers. As I made the next tour through the sea of seats and again stopped to gently chide them about speedy responses, they would fiercely whisper, “You’ve watched me work the problems.”

English may have been better, but it’s hard to tell, because I taught my students how to read the questions and find the correct answers, rather than waste time reading the myriad excerpts from obscure literature sources to which few, if any, students can connect. If it’s all about correct responses, I teach them how to determine correct responses or narrow down the options to 2.

Believe it or not, our school’s English Language Arts scores are always our best performance indicators.

We waded through science (2 tests) and social studies after plodding through the math and ELA, and then we were finished for another year. The 4-hour blocks of time set aside for test administration each day were hardly necessary: regardless of the content area, my students were done, done, done within the first 2 hours!

The results will be released from the state, and the community will be aghast at how poorly the teachers are doing their jobs. It will never dawn on the public that the teachers have nothing to do with performance on mandated testing: remember, we can lead the horses to the water, but we cannot make them drink.

Students do not take the testing seriously because it has nothing to do with them individually. If a student failed a course or graduated from high school based on the results of the testing, you bet your sweet ass they would take it seriously; however, since the only use for the testing results is to grade the school’s overall academic performance, at best an esoteric goal to which most students cannot attach themselves, the students simply do not give a damn about the outcome.

They have become automatons who get up, get dressed, go to school (or not), return home, watch videos, hang with their friends, IM until the wee hours, and then get up the next day and do it again. After four years, gimme my diploma so I can go into the real world, get a “well-paying” job, and be the success my parents always knew I would be.

What’s missing in the routine is schoolwork. The kids who tote the books, complete the assignments, come to school prepared, are, perhaps, 10% of the total school population. The rest of the kids treat school as if it were just another job. The student parrots the parents: I am on the clock between 8 am and 3 pm; the rest of the time is my personal time, and I’m not bringing my job home with me. The teacher has to learn a hard lesson: if I don’t cover it during the class, it’s not going to become part of the student’s educational experience.

The textbook is 1100 pages in length, divided into 10 sections, and we pretty much need to cover something in each of the 10 units of instruction. We can hop through it, deleting the majority of the content so we can cover all of the material during class, or we can work through it, both in class and at home, and allow the students to actually learn something.

Today’s society wants the student to complete all of the work during the 55-minute class period, and be prepared for any “well-paying” job a student decides suits him/her for the future. I have so many students who want a “carrer” as a “veteran” because they love animals. There is no more spelling list: that’s a list that is assigned Monday and tested on Friday, with lots of home practice in between. In today’s society, we will use spell check and be done with that! The discussion about different spellings for words with similar pronunciation does a fly-by because one word is as good as another, and the reader can always “figure out what I mean.”

When I can only cover what fits into 55 minutes a day, 90 days a semester, it limits the quality content required to prepare students for their futures, whatever that may be. Society needs to decide the goal: educate the kids or just go through the motions.

The state will release the test results and, once again, the public will be appalled at how poorly the schools are doing, the blame will be heaped onto the shoulders of The Broken Teacher, and life will continue. It has truly come to pass that “We Don’t Need No Education.”

Eating Disorder

“Well, Mia, what do you have to say for yourself?”

She stared at me, not blinking, waiting for me to continue the inquisition. She knew exactly what she had done because this was not the first time she had gone on a binge that involved polishing off something she should not eat. Last week, it was a bag of chips, the flat pretzel chips I discovered at Sam’s Club and cannot find anywhere else. I love those chips, but Mia does too.
We share pretty much everything, but most especially chips, a rare treat that I seldom indulge.

Today, it was a full bag of my favorite Senseo® coffee pods, the subtly caramel French vanilla flavored coffee that I have come to crave. I bought the new bag yesterday on a shopping spree at Wal-Mart, where the Senseo® coffee is priced about $1.50 less than any other store that carries it. I buy 5 packages, totaling 90 cups of delicious, freshly-brewed coffee ready a mere minute after I decide I want a cup. Sure, it costs me a bit more to have the individual pods, about $3.50 a package, but I did the Starbuck’s math and convinced myself that I “save” more than enough from not buying Starbucks than I spend on Senseo®. It never enters the equation that I may stop at Starbucks once in a blue moon, but enjoy my daily several cups of coffee. It’s the principle, I assure myself.

Mia demolished an entire unopened bag of coffee pods! I was not happy, and she knew it, but Mia wasn’t talking. She has a way of just staring, not saying a word in her defense, all the while knowing that I’ll blink first and she can walk away unscathed. This time, however, I was committed to outlasting her as the escalating behavior is beginning to annoy me—a lot.

I bought some square canisters a month or so ago, when Mia began bingeing on anything she could get her teeth into. It didn’t matter if it was a taste she would enjoy or just a product she wanted to sample, Mia tucked into anything I left on the countertop or table. Because she can pop the lid on most storage containers, the new canisters have locking tops that don’t just fit into grooves, but include a tab that snaps down and locks the lids in place. So far, Mia hasn’t been able to breech the new layer of security for items that may tempt her into tasting them the minute I have my back turned, but I’m not quite as conscientious about what I remember to protect as I need to be to keep Mia in check.

Believe it or not, I never dreamed that I should secure coffee pods. But I thought the same thing a month ago, when I bought a fresh bag of prunes, one of my all-time weaknesses in the snack department. The physical response to Mia’s prune binge prompted the purchase of the lock-tight square canisters: it was not a pretty mess she made, either in emptying the bag of prunes or the natural physical reaction to their consumption.

“Mia, I am not going to put up with this behavior much longer. I am sick and tired of you bingeing on anything you consider fair game. The prunes, the chips, the Hershey’s kisses, the protein bars, and now the coffee pods. This has to stop, Mia. Do you hear me? This has to stop!”

She maintained her stony silence, her big brown eyes looking sorrowful, but not showing an iota of regret or remorse. She was not going to incriminate herself by admitting her guilt, nor was she going to try to talk her way out of what she knows she’s been doing. She was quite content to wait me out, sharing the couch with me, and offering a comforting pat on my arm.

After staring eyeball to eyeball for another couple of minutes without exchanging a word, I decided that it was a waste of time to make her understand that she's to leave my food alone: she has her own snacks. Besides, I'm working on another afghan and this silent stare-off was seriously cutting into my craft time. She wasn't going to budge, so I guess it was time for me to move on--again.

Mia must have agreed as she got up from the couch, stretched, and sauntered out her doggie door.

Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home!

Oh, for crying out loud: it is NOT in my job description to explain what a “codpiece” is to a 16-year-old (young) man!

I thought, for a fleeting moment, that no one would hear the narrator for the “Knights and Armor” educational film mention the “unusual codpiece” on a particular piece of armor. Actually, it’s huge and would make any male porn star proud of his accomplishments, but I was sure not one teen would bat an eyelash as it’s a quick pan of the camera and we move on.

And then along came Willy, the guy who notices everything that is the least bit sexual—no matter how far one stretches the definition of “sexual.” The humongous, jutting “codpiece” was his cuppa tea, and he went for it.

“Wait! What the HELL was that? DID YOU SEE THAT?” he asked the students.

When he received no response from anyone, including yours truly, he became agitated. “Rewind that part! I want to see that again. I frickin’ can’t believe it! It’s a metal dick!”

Oh, dear god, here we go, I thought. “No, Willy, it’s called a codpiece,” chirped I, ever the educator.

“A COD piece? Yeah, it’s a piece all right, but I ain’t never heard it called no COD!”

It is amazing how loudly and how long a teenager can laugh about an educational film! There were two distinct layers to the laughter: the deep male-bonding bass and the embarrassed tittering of the sopranos. It was going south in a hurry, and Willy was on a roll. It’s in the job description that I head him off at the pass, so I grabbed at something, anything, anything at all to stop this before it went one word further.

“Willy, may I see you for a moment?” I headed for my quiet corner, he reluctantly following me, still stuttering on about the huge metal dick on that dude. I knew it was going to be a hard sell, but I had to turn him away from the 1/10 th of one second of the film.

“Willy, during the Elizabethan times, Shakespeare often referred to an extra layer of protection for a man’s genitalia as a codpiece” wasn’t going to answer Willy’s question or quiet his commentary. Myriad thoughts ran through my head, but no solution offered itself to me before I was backed into the corner of the room I optimistically call my office. I was either going to walk off the field of battle carrying my shield or be laughed off by the kid, but I had to try.

Going for broke, I told him that the antiquated term codpiece referred to a protective covering of a man’s private parts, similar to the athletic cup he wears when he plays baseball. I further allowed as how a particular piece of armor in the educational film briefly showed one such metal codpiece, but we were not going to rewind and watch that part of the film again.

Trying desperately to turn him away from codpieces, I also mentioned that his outburst was inappropriate in a classroom setting, and reminded him that he needs to learn to temper his natural tendency to shout out, especially when he is making inappropriate sexual references.

No, I didn’t really think that would take him off point, but I had to try. Suddenly, a plan evolved and I explained to Willy that his natural curiosity could, however, be satisfied …

if he and his father would like to come in either before or after school. I would gladly rewind the film so he and his father could view it, and then his father could have a father/son conversation about the codpiece on the piece of armor.

Yeah, like that’s going to happen. No dad in the world would voluntarily walk into that scenario, and Willy knew it.

Willy returned to watch the rest of the film clip in silence, perhaps waiting for something else provocative to catch his eye so we could enjoy round 2. However, I have the power of the remote, so I closed down the film and wound things up just as the bell rang.

Bu there is a thought that won't go away: what the heck do I do IF DAD SHOWS UP?

A Castle by Any Other Name is Just Butcher Paper

I am creating a castle in my classroom. It’s all along one wall, with a crenulated top, twining vines, a passageway that opens onto a moat (the drawbridge is down), and a knight is taking shape in the opening.

When I first began my project, the students jeered and laughed at me, thinking my wanting a castle in my classroom was the funniest thing they had ever heard. However, as I began to draw the stones, put in the doorway, add the flags flying atop the castle walls, and twine ivy here and there, they suddenly decided … it’s cool!

I’ve had offers of help that did not exist when I began my project, and I’ve joyfully accepted all of them. It may not turn out exactly the way I pictured it at the onset, but it will be a reflection of many willing hands and joyful hearts when it is finished.

The next step is the dragon: after all, what is a castle without a dragon? When my knight crosses the drawbridge, he has to have a quest; hence, the dragon. Fire-breathing dragon, that is.

My plan is to have its head above the white board, his body below it, and his tail curving back across the top, ending at the clock. We will assume that the majority of the body is hidden behind the board, which saves a lot of drawing, cutting, painting, etc. That will be the most excellent finishing touch when it appears!

So far, it’s just butcher paper, construction paper, and elbow grease, but the kids are amazed at how good it actually looks. I’m having fun, they’re coming on board, and lots of new faces are stopping by to check the progress on the castle.

I may get my whole room turned into a castle by June, one wall at a time, if the enthusiasm continues.

Day 38

If this week is not bad enough already, today we were called together for an emergency staff meeting to learn that there is a list, probably a prank, with names on it—and the date April 20.

April 20 is Hitler’s birthday; April 20 is Smoke Pot Day; April 20 is the day of the Columbine High School massacre. April 20 is 4 days following Virginia Tech.

We’ll have heightened security and a visible police presence, but the day will take a long time from start to finish, with everyone holding their breaths and praying that nothing happens. Many parents will opt to keep their children home, and many students will make that decision regardless of what their parents tell them to do.

For many of us, it’s just not worth running the risk that this time, it’s not a prank.