Month: May 2016

testing testing 123…456,789

~ mildlifecrisis ~ Leave a comment

I have test anxiety.

The testing of my children and presumably all children seems to be spinning out of control.  It’s ridiculous.  Not only time consuming and anxiety provoking-I’m growing concerned that we are raising a generation of robots.  Test taking robots.  And if this next generation of children turn into robots…well-any good sci-fi movie can show you how that turns out.  Spoiler alert: They take over and kill us.

Is it near impossible for teachers to have any time to teach?  Has it become impossible to give students adequate time to learn?  Do we have any time left in the schedule for thinking? Pondering? Questioning?  Do teachers have flexibility within the curriculum to do things in their own way in their own time?  Is the Socratic method still alive and well out there? Or is almost all of the time devoted to preparing for and taking the next test?

I think it might be.  I give that an F.

My first grader has 44 assessments that are entered into his report card.  This doesn’t include general assessments under”work habits/social development”, or any special classes like physical education, art or music.  This also does not include twice annual standardized testing in reading and math which is also scored, entered and analyzed.  44 assessments in 174 school days.   He is 7 years old. His teacher has 23 students. The one I contribute to her daily burden counts as twins so I’m sure it feels like 24.  My point is that his teacher distributes, scores and enters about 1500 items each year not including the standardized test data.

My sixth grader has twice annual standardized testing compared to national norms.  (last year he also had state testing in 3 subject areas)  He is graded on a 70/30 system.  70% is “academic achievement” which primarily means tests.  30% of his grade is “academic practice”-homework, small quizzes,written reflection, etc.  If you are middle aged this is what we called “daily work”.

My freshman.  God bless her.  It has been quite the school year.  She is on an 85/15 system.  85% of her grades are based on tests.  15% is the rest.  It’s suffocating.  I wouldn’t survive in this atmosphere because when I was a student, my daily work propped up any less than stellar test scores.  Example: If I did poorly on a synonym test, I could turn in a nice little worksheet or essay or extra credit or large project something to balance out the score.  In this new world, you MUST do well on the tests or your grades are screwed.  Synonyms for screwed include: hopeless, ruined, broken.

I fear my children aren’t learning as much as they could be.  Learning is different from studying.  They are studying. They spend hours studying.  And I have one that would be an excellent Jeopardy contestant.  Steel trap memory.  Great test taker.  But I’m beginning to wonder about long term outcomes for their brains because it appears that there is little practice of critical thinking skills in school.

Most recently, the middle school instituted a modified “lock down” for grades not performing standardized tests.  They sat in the same room for a couple of hours (with no access to wi-fi or the bathroom)  quietly reading or watching movies so that the other grades could take their tests in relative silence.  My son watched Shaun the Sheep. Huh?     I mention no wi-fi because now that they have been issued iPads, their homework and reading material and school life is all on the device.  So-during this testing time for other grades they couldn’t have any academic instruction themselves and likely developed some bladder infections too.

The high school has juniors sit for the ACT all on the same floor of the building.  Seniors have that day off. Sophomores take a practice exam that day. Freshman have regular classes in different classrooms than the norm (since juniors are all on one floor) and an early release.  All of them reminded to maintain the utmost quiet for the ‘test takers.’

Really?  Will an atmosphere of absolute quiet make that much of a difference in the score?   These kids are going to be our future electricians and doctors and police officers and architects and researchers and salespeople and NBA players (I threw that in for the delusional basketball parents…ha ha ha)   These jobs don’t offer quiet.  Don’t firefighters make important decisions amidst chaos?  Don’t teachers?  Don’t we all?  Surgeons make critical decisions every day.  I don’t know about you but I don’t want any surgeon working on me who might be rattled by ambient noise.

Clearly, the militant enforcement of an atmosphere of quiet amps up the drama of the importance of testing.  Performance. Achievement.  Data points.  Is it any wonder we have a large and growing population of kids on anti-anxiety medication?  It may not be a direct cause and effect.  But it isn’t helping.

The poor teachers.  We have shackled them to testing schedules and pigeon holed them into narrow curriculums.  We are squelching their creativity so they can in turn squelch it in their students.  They have so many kids all along the continuum to shepherd (shove) into performing well on tests or their jobs are on the line. When does teaching just disintegrate into rote ‘training’ for the exam?

The kids eventually end up learning how to play the game.  They turn in a couple assignments and spend the rest of the precious time studying for tests.  Sometimes they retake one to get a better score.  This causes extra anxiety as the new and old tests start to stack up.   They read the SparkNotes instead of reading the book.  This causes me sadness and rage.  I love to read so skipping the book to skim through Spark Notes just seems tragic.  Plus, in time will they think about that book the way I do?  No-because they won’t have a life experience that reminds them of the SparkNotes.  They missed the experience.  The rage?  If I have to be honest, there isn’t time to really read the book sometimes.  They don’t write many papers.  A few.  They do take tests about the book and the answers to the test are in the SparkNotes. Putting down 150 pages of a novel on top of everything else just isn’t practical every time.  I get it.  We are training them to cheat themselves out of an education.

There are 16.5 school days left before summer.  I can’t wait.  My kids can step back into being children and step out of being students.

Maybe they will read books. Maybe they will think long, slow, winding thoughts and draw their own conclusions.

Maybe they will learn something new.

Throwback Thursday: 21 years

Aside ~ ~ mildlifecrisis ~ 1 Comment

 

 

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So I have this weird thing I do.  (many weird things but I’m only sharing this one today) Sometimes I think about people who have died when I catch myself watching a sunrise or staring at a beautiful tree or looking at a bird in the yard and I think…How can they have missed this?  They should see this bird, this incredible bird.  If they had just lasted 7 more years, they could be staring at this yellow bird right now.  How did they not see this particular sunrise?  I know they saw sunrises…but not this one.  They didn’t make it long enough to see that tree! Two more years and they could have stood right beneath the canopy of this tree.  And how lucky am I to see this tree? Why am I the lucky one?

And I feel such gratitude for such luck. (stay with me…)

I’m 21 years into my marriage today.  To the same human.  How?  21!? But I’m only 30 years old! Time has just tumbled forward snowballing faster and faster. I’ve been told it goes by even more quickly with every passing year.  I was 23 when I got married.  Were my daughter to follow in our footsteps, she would make a lifelong commitment to someone just 9 years from now.

But.I.won’t.let.THAT.happen.  ha ha ha. Seriously, though she isn’t allowed.

There are many articles, studies, books all devoted to what makes for a lasting marriage.  Statistics have been compiled.  Algorithms laid out. Theories have been developed. Therapies have been formed.  I believed in all that as a newly married person.  I could easily cite why we were married, why it made sense and why it would all work for the long haul. If you ask people what the ‘secret’ is they have many simple explanations.   People often say God brought them together,they have similar values, they are opposites and opposites attract, they “grew up together” (a case for marrying early), they “knew who they were” before they got married (a case for marrying later), they work hard at their marriage, they put their relationship first, they are just the perfect compliment to one another, and on and on and on.

I wanted to believe it was simple and formulaic but I don’t believe that at all.

  1. God brought us together.  God likely only gets partial credit for some things and is harshly criticized for others and people make it pretty convenient to involve God in the argument if it suits them.  If you meet someone at an Atheist Convention in Vegas and you are 9 cocktails in and end up getting married that night, God planned that out just for you?   Mmm-I’m not so sure.  Seems like the bright lights and adrenaline and Johnnie Walker Black may have set that up for you.  And if God brings all these people together does he bring over 50% apart?  God makes the matches but then it’s all free will when people split up?  Nah. Plus,  I don’t believe in the one person for one person myth.  There are probably other men I could have contentedly married and we could have lasted 21 years.  There are also probably several nice, docile, pleasant, lovely women out there who enjoy bass fishing, Cheetos, tank tops and sub-zero house temps that my husband could be happily married to right now.  Stay away from him you bombshell fishing floozies-we’ve already put in 21 years renovating each other.
  2. Similar values or opposites attract.  Yeah.  Sounds good.  Until a city mouse wants to be a country mouse. Or the person who always wanted children suddenly feels it at the very core of their being that they do not. The frugal saver spends lavishly on a whim for the first time in their life. What if one with the ever stable job walks away to ‘find themselves’?  What if the opposite thing that was so alluring is now the very thing that you can’t tolerate? People do change.  Similar values in 1995 may not mean similar values in 2005. In our case, some of our most sweeping changes were the very scaffolding to hold us together.
  3. Timing.  The exact right age to get married. Once, in college, my friend Erika’s dad told us this at dinner-(I’m paraphrasing) ‘There are no soul mates.  You don’t find the right person and marry them.  You get to an age where you are ready to marry and end up with whomever is in front of you at the time’  Needless to say-we were disturbed and insisted he was wrong.  He wasn’t wrong.  Wise words from George.  If you ‘grow up together’ you have the challenges of getting on the same maturity trajectory.  If you already ‘know who you are’ you have challenges compromising because you have your own ways of dealing with life independently.
  4. Working hard at marriage.  Sheesh.  Is there any other way?  Two humans that live together?  It’s a lot of work to just get up every day and be yourself.  To consider another person and their needs/wants/dreams/hopes on an ongoing basis is…is…is.. A LOT.  And I like him and love him and it’s still a lot. Rewarding. Joyful. Instructive. Humbling.  I think people who stay together work at it and I still think people who end their marriages worked at it too.  Regular date night is not a guarantee of anything except a decent meal-usually.
  5. The appearance of happy.  We look happy a lot of the time. We are generally happy. We have loved each other truly, madly, deeply over 21 years. HOWEVER, it is not a stretch to say that at one point or another (I’ll just speak for both of us here) we have fantasized, albeit briefly, about the other person falling into a well.  Not a huge well. Not a super far fall. Nothing life threatening…but a fall into a well nonetheless.  We were at many weddings where we watched in awe what an ‘ideal’ match was about to take place.  Oh-some of those couples just made it look effortless.  I would have bet a kidney they would be together until death doth them part.  Alternately, we were at a few weddings where I clenched my teeth and waited in vain for someone, anyone (please) to stand up and OBJECT when the opportunity arose.  I would have bet a kidney those marriages would last a year, if that.  I’ve been to a lot of weddings and had I placed bets…I would be out two kidneys right now.

I have my own theory on marriage.  I think we have made it to this Thursday due to gritty determination and luck.   We have been very determined but mostly so, so, so lucky.

I’m grateful to see this, specific Thursday view of this lovely lake and I’m glad we made it these 21 years so I can be here with him. ❤️