Another week, another round of state and local mandated universal testing at school. Since the beginning of the year our middle school students have been required to take a math inventory, a reading growth assessment and inventory, a reading standards assessment, and they have a math standards assessment scheduled for Thursday.
Since today and Thursday's tests were all-school, we followed a modified schedule with 90 minutes of testing followed by shortened block classes. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I planned my lessons and activities, but it should have been something along the lines of, They will have been sitting silently for hours; don't try to get much done!
Even posting a picture of their favorite candy for a warm up took way longer than it should have, and the pent up energy in the room made what should have been a fun and easy conversation a little nasty and tense. In both sections I had to remind the group that I didn't ask what they thought the best candy was, I asked for their favorites. "Can there really be any debate about that?" I wondered pointedly.
And although they dutifully admitted that all of us are welcome to our opinion, there was still a lot of trash talking, especially the cookies-n-cream bar. "I hate white chocolate!" one kid groaned loudly.
"Who asked you?" I inquired in reply.
They were just being contrary. Because when I offered each a chance to speak on behalf of their favorite, not many chose to say much, besides, The picture speaks for itself.
Maybe so, but not many were listening!
No comments:
Post a Comment