I am certain that last week’s stout wind that tossed the bird feeder, knocked over my lawn chairs and dragged a few weak leaves from the mulberry tree was caused by the collective sigh of California children exhaling in relief at the end of State Standardized Testing.
Teachers and others working in education talk about these tests all the time. We argue the benefits and detriments, exchange ideas for gearing up kids without stripping their gears, and bemoan the days when the annual state test was just a test – not the all-in-all-goal-of-a-teacher’s-life.
But what do the students think about all of this? What’s their take on taking The Test?
I was privileged to find out on the very first day of our test week. My room was properly denuded of all catchy grammar hints and colorful word-wall displays. Plain paper drooped blandly over a giant list of prefixes and suffixes, and in an effort to liven the scene, I hung a movie poster from Pirates of the Caribbean, a large print of an Aslanesque lion, another of a wolf and one of an iceberg photographed from beneath the water line. Not very comforting images, but unusual enough to prompt a little imagination or just plain mental relief.
As I trolled the room that morning, peering over the shoulders of the studious, I detected the bare corner of a piece of binder paper tucked almost completely beneath a student’s book. He had finished the test and was reading quietly as directed. When I reached down to pull out the paper, he glanced up with pleading eyes and quickly shook his head as if to hide a forbidden note from a fellow student.
I persisted, he relented, and here is what I found – the honest heart of a test-riddled sixth grader. I share it with his permission.
Test Time!
A calm before the storm begins
Will I do well?
My heart beats, like hammer on cloth!
I stare at the wall
Jack Sparrow returns my gaze
Standing with a sword in hand and the Black Pearl at his back.
I glare at the million questions before me
Feeling a pang of pain
… or self-pity!
I begin to write with a very light hand
Answering questions as best I can.
My classmates and I sound confused altogether.
This test may go on forever and ever …
©Isaac Flores
April 26, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
A Way With Words
Sometimes we say what we don’t mean. It can be in the form of a simile like, cute as a button, or an idiom – chip off the ol’ block – or just a simple spelling error like one of my students made when she wrote about the Prince of Whales. Did she really mean Moby Dick?
Sometimes we don’t mean what we say. Hyperbole is a great example, as in “My feet are killing me.” Are they really? How about that ton of homework your child lugged home today? Did he have any difficulty dragging it across the threshold?
However, we often try very hard to say exactly what we mean, and when we bump up against a language barrier, it can be not only frustrating, but also embarrassing. Just last week an English language-learner wrote on her History test the only thing she could think of for the upper, ruling class of ancient Greece: Aristotle craps.
She was reaching for “Aristocrats” of course, and since I could see the connection, I gave her credit for her rather colorful attempt.
This week in an extra-credit report on Alexander the Great, another student told me the young conqueror died from astronomical diary.
I wonder: did he choke on his own words?
Last winter, just before Christmas break, I wrote a note to a substitute instructing Jesus to sit with Miss Angel at the back table. It sounded OK in my head, because I internally heard the Hispanic pronunciation of “hay-soos.” But seeing it on paper the next day made me wonder if the sub was a little nervous about who would be attending class.
Though it’s often frustrating to communicate exactly what we mean, there are a few phrases that somehow never fail to carry their message:
I understand.
It’s OK.
We’ll get through this together.
I love you.
I’m sorry.
You were right.
You’re amazing.
Pick one to share with your child each day this week. I’m sure that opportunities will present themselves.
Sometimes we don’t mean what we say. Hyperbole is a great example, as in “My feet are killing me.” Are they really? How about that ton of homework your child lugged home today? Did he have any difficulty dragging it across the threshold?
However, we often try very hard to say exactly what we mean, and when we bump up against a language barrier, it can be not only frustrating, but also embarrassing. Just last week an English language-learner wrote on her History test the only thing she could think of for the upper, ruling class of ancient Greece: Aristotle craps.
She was reaching for “Aristocrats” of course, and since I could see the connection, I gave her credit for her rather colorful attempt.
This week in an extra-credit report on Alexander the Great, another student told me the young conqueror died from astronomical diary.
I wonder: did he choke on his own words?
Last winter, just before Christmas break, I wrote a note to a substitute instructing Jesus to sit with Miss Angel at the back table. It sounded OK in my head, because I internally heard the Hispanic pronunciation of “hay-soos.” But seeing it on paper the next day made me wonder if the sub was a little nervous about who would be attending class.
Though it’s often frustrating to communicate exactly what we mean, there are a few phrases that somehow never fail to carry their message:
I understand.
It’s OK.
We’ll get through this together.
I love you.
I’m sorry.
You were right.
You’re amazing.
Pick one to share with your child each day this week. I’m sure that opportunities will present themselves.
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