The Test Taker's Turn

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