This blog is going to be pretty emotionally-charged. I can already tell. I am MAD today. Really, really angry. If I gave my blog posts titles (which I don't because I like to keep track of my number of days easily and it's helpful for referencing a specific day's events), today's would be "STOP TESTING." Today was the last day of testing for all of the grades, except for those children who need to make up a test tomorrow. I proctored the same 4th grade class, except this time they were doing Part II of the reading test instead of a math test. It went by much more quickly, because there were only 30-some questions rather than 60. Anyway, back to my point. As I finished up this morning and was walking to the workroom, I saw that one of the 3rd grade teachers had a sign on her door that said STOP TESTING (one word on the top line, one on the bottom). All of the teachers had similar signs to inform people in the hallways to be quiet, but this one in particular grabbed my attention, because it wasn't punctuated, so it really made it look like a protest sign more than anything. I know it wasn't meant to be that way, but I definitely agree with the sentiment. Beyond the fact that it looked like a protest sign, it mirrored my thoughts the entire time I was proctoring. "Stop testing. Please stop testing." It sounds like I wanted them to rush through and just get it over with. That's not it. I just wanted them to be done. For their sake, and (selfishly) for my own. This week was draining, and I wasn't even testing. I'm also not 9 years old. It's just too much.
Our kids were stressed out. They were so over it by the end of today. And then there were all these signs all over the 3rd-5th grade hallways that said things like "When the tests are done we can have some FUN!" (They sounded better than that but the point is they were rhyming and they all said basically the same thing). What kind of message are we sending when we say "Okay, the tests are over, now let's have fun!"? I know that I was bored to death proctoring the test, but I wouldn't have shown it to the kids. If I were a child and I had a bunch of adults basically sitting around staring at me while I took a test, knowing that when I finished we would get to "have fun" for the first time in forever, why would I want to prolong that any more? The VERY LAST question on the test today was a writing one. Yeah, right. Like a bunch of 4th graders who just sat through a 2-hour math test and then a 2-day reading test are going to want to sit down and write an essay. That is exactly why when I take any test (and mind you, I am a college senior now -- haven't changed my tactics) I flip right to the end to see if there is a long-answer section and I do that first. Usually they're at the end so I always check. Then I do short-answer. Then I do multiple choice. It's because after I answer 60-some multiple choice problems, I am so over it that anything I write is going to be just awful. I have to do it first, because writing is where you can really show what you know. You can guess on multiple-choice questions if you have absolutely no idea, which takes the pressure off. But you can't guess on an essay. Now, I've done my fair share of BS-ing my way through writing prompts I wasn't fully prepared for (cough, AP Senior English...) and I still do okay because I am a pretty strong writer. But that's just something I've developed over time -- and it definitely wasn't there when I was 9. Too many questions = brain shutdown. Those kids probably wrote a single paragraph over their prompt, when there was space for at least 3. But they were done. I was done. It was all just stupid at that point.
Another thing I hate about testing (as a monitor) is how you can't help the kids. One girl, when she finally got to the essay a million and a half questions later, had no idea what it was asking her. I sort of guessed as much when I saw the look on her face after she read through it, and I knew it for sure when she raised her hand and straight-up told me "I don't understand this question." (It was a dead giveaway. I'm not as intuitive as I pretend to be.) I told her, "Read the directions and do your best." She looked at me hopelessly and said "But I don't get it. I don't know what it wants me to do." I just said "I'm so sorry, I can't help you." I threw in that "so" before my sorry so maybe she would understand how much I really wanted to help her. As teachers we kind of toss around "I'm sorry" and use it in situations when we're really not that sorry. ("So-and-so said I was a baby!" "I'm sorry." "I tore my paper while I was erasing it!!" "I'm sorry." "I don't like this snack today!!!" "I'm sorry.") So I threw in the "so," because I really was SO SORRY. I wanted to help her understand. I don't get why I couldn't. What good does it do for a child to answer a question she doesn't fully comprehend? She could have had the most amazing essay in the world, and she could know everything about whatever the subject of the essay was supposed to be (I didn't actually read the prompt, but now I kind of wish I had) but she just didn't get the question. And I couldn't help her. I felt absolutely horrible watching her struggle. My instincts are to help. I don't see why it matters.
Testing is stupid. It is so stupid. I'm not just saying that because I had to sit at the back of a (freezing cold) classroom for hours this week. I'm not just saying it because it was inconvenient for all of us to switch around classrooms and leave teachers (Aryn) in a classroom (alone) with 26 (nut bag) kids. I'm not even saying it because the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders didn't want to take the tests and were bored taking the tests or were even stressed out taking the tests. Test anxiety is a scary thing for kids, yes...but that's not why I think testing is stupid. I think it's stupid because it takes the most minute of facts and makes kids demonstrate their knowledge 60 times in a row. It's stupid because there are 5 problems that all look at the exact same thing. It's stupid because we teach them for years that what they know cannot be measured on a test. Tests can be wrong. Even in kindergarten, on that writing test we had to give them, they were wrong. One of our greatest writers floundered. Some of our weakest writers had a rare stroke of genius (good for them...but still not reflective of daily work). Tests don't show what we think they do, or want them to, or expect them to. Testing is stupid. It's stupid because it's just really, really, really stupid. I can't explain it better than that. I wish I could. I wish everyone could understand how meaningless this whole week was for all of us. And now tomorrow we get to "have fun" because school isn't fun until your tests are finished. How nice. How encouraging. Honestly...how stupid can we be?
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