testing, testing....

One more marking period to go. One gauntlet of stste-mandated testing in the way. This is going to test my patience with test preparation and what I see as something more worthwhile: actually teaching my students something new, instead of spending what may amount to the rest of the year on review.

They aren't particularly excited about it. I guess I ought to try my best to make it exciting, but who among us really wants to listen to their boring teacher reteach stuff we already learned and learned well?! I could get up on my soapbox and rant and rave about it all, but I know it ain't going away. Only way I can reduce or eliminate testing is to invent a better mousetrap. To a bureaucrat, this testing assault proves everything. To an educator, the testing proves that the bureaucrats know nothing. Maybe I ought to become one someday and shake up their view of the world.

Is it Juneteenth yet?

work dreams

work is creeping into my dreams. it happens every year. for about eighty percent of the year, no worries when i walk out that door. i focus on life. outwardly, it would seem the same is true for the last twenty. subconsciously, apparently not the case. right now, assessment insanity at work. my poor 21 munchkins have been subjected to many, many out-of-the-ordinary reading tests one-on-one with me.

"here, read this book out loud. i'm going to listen to you read, and write down everything you say. don't be nervous."

yeah, right. doesn't even faze my high-achieving ones. attention problems. strugglers. yeah, they flip. they read worse than i know they're capable of, and ethically, i can't do a damn thing about it. i've got to call it as i see it, even if the day-to-day reality is far different than what that thirty minutes or less on that one day shows.

my college courses always said, "a test is one piece of information. assessment is ongoing." practice thus far has shown that to be bullshit. if it weren't, wouldn't assessment creep into my dreams year-round?

that's what i thought.