It's been an intense week: we had to go out for dinner tonight so I could have a margarita, and it's only Tuesday!
I'm the Testing Coordinator at our school. (What can I say? -- I needed the money.) We offered the ACT last week, we're in the middle of the state graduation tests, the PSAT is tomorrow (postposed due to the High Holy Days), and we're trying to organize an SAT prep course to start in a couple of weeks. Since the Jewish holidays decimated most of our October work schedule, nearly all of the preparation for these exciting events -- room assignments and proctor negoatiations and location of materials and instructions to custodians and last minute calls to the College Board and dire warnings to students about, oh, whatever -- has been crammed into the past few days. I finally left work a bit after 7:00 tonight, having spent much of the late afternoon roaming the school to pilfer clocks and pencil sharpeners for the testing rooms tomorrow. And somehow today I also taught eighth graders about Maritime Canada, 11th graders about the Berlin Wall, and 9th graders about the Tang-Song dynasties
It rained all day, so I didn't have to feel too bad about missing the action outside. But I was aware, all day, of the contrast between the mindset that dreamed up the idea of standardizing and testing and slotting human beings and the mindset that appreciates this:
There are, by the way, more tree pictures over at Sycamore.
5 comments:
OMG!!! This is incredible! I LOVE this photo! What a simply beautiful and beautifully simple image.
And I dare not start on the topic of standardized testing. I may end up raving for pages. It is TERRIBLE!!!
'kay, enuf.
Vicky
http://www.livejournal.com/users/vxv789/
What a beautiful photo. I hate that education has been reduced to test achievement scores, but I won't go off...unless you share a pitcher or margaritas.
Lovely tree.
I may be the only "liberal" in the world who doesn't have a bug up my butt about standardized testing. When I was in grade school, we had standardized tests three times a year---final exams sent out by the diocese at the end of each semester, and "achievement tests" that quantified our grade level in things like math, science, and English. Nobody got all fussed out about them, they were a fact of life and we just did them. We didn't have big "pass the test" classes; the tests were simply a way to measure how much of what we were being taught was making it into our brains. I seriously do not understand the anti-test attitude of today's academic culture. If there is a better way (and I have to think that the state of our educational system today indicates we haven't found one...) why aren't we using it? Lisa :-] http://journals.aol.com/mlraminiak/ComingtotermswithMiddleAge/
How do you do it all? You are an amazing woman.
Another magnificent photo; how do you do it? Don't even get me started on the ills of standardized testing. Or how about AP classes. Based on my dd's 1st quarter h.s. grades, approx. a 3.67 GPA, the counselor has determined that she should be on an AP track beginning with AP World History next year. Hellooooooo............
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