Susan Fedor/00-01/Diary Entry18

Entry # 18:
We Have Been Tested

On Monday, everyone was out of sorts. Our state's PACT high-stakes test week had begun.

The testing coordinator (a.k.a. guidance counselor with no time to guide last week, this week, or the make-up week upcoming) smiled weakly as teachers filed in for the security check, which was to be repeated every morning this week. She had been at school all weekend sorting and stacking the four test booklets and two answer books that would be used during testing -- only just arrived from the State Department. But she is the PACT Queen, and she made sure things ran smoothly.

Nevertheless, nerves were taut and stress observable among students, teachers, and parents alike. The principal was not feeling too gracious herself. Smiles were hard to come by. The tension was palpable everywhere in the school. Even the normally laid back among us found themselves snapping at one another.

I reported to a class, which I was to monitor along with the teacher for the entire five days of testing. This teacher had a particularly trying roster of students, and I volunteered to help. My true motive for being there was to have a close view of the week from a real perspective. That is what I had.

The First Day

On the first day, the student whom I had kept late to work on a project recently occupied most of my attention. On this first of two days of language arts tests, Peter could not sit still. While others were silent and still with only the sound of number 2 pencils scratching as they "filled in the bubbles with no stray marks," Peter was enthralled with a hangnail. It required all his attention. I brought him a Band-Aid. Then he twirled his hair a piece at a time staring into space. The bathroom request was next. Then, his coughing began. During the listening portion of the test he gazed into middle distance with no attempt to take notes on what he heard. During the second reading of the same passage he was similarly unengaged. So, how did he get two of the three answers right?

Then he needed tissue and wanted to leave the room to blow his nose. "Nothing doing, " I said. He scowled. I scowled right back. I kept an anecdotal record throughout the testing period and made a beeline after testing to call his dad. I read my notes to him, and dad said that it was time for a pediatrician's visit. The testing period ended three hours after it had begun with one stretch break for relief. And we had four more days to go.

Day Two

On day two, I placed Peter in the desk along side mine at the back of the room where he would pose no distraction for anyone else in the room. Whenever his gaze drifted, I tapped on the desk and he resumed work. Just having someone to interact with him improved his concentration measurably. This day he was not the first one to finish. When I asked him to go over his work again, he completed several items he had initially left blank and got them right. He was on track.

The tests were difficult. Most of the teachers mentioned that there were items they themselves could not answer correctly. We may have to repeat the grade ourselves, we thought collectively. So when the students remarked that the test was easy, we all grew uneasy. I think they were trying to keep our spirits up by reassuring us that they were doing fine.

Middle schoolers do that.

One teacher told me about her conscientious honors students coming across a foreign concept on the test. She said that it caused her heart to break when they looked at her with beseeching eyes as she could only smile back at them feebly and mouth, "Just do your best."

Taking precious time away

My worst fear was that the students did not even grasp how difficult and challenging the test was having missed the subtle discrimination required to determine correct answers. One thing I can say about the authors of those tests: they were really skilled at creating the attractive "distracter" answer choices. I just hope that we have taught our children careful reading. My fear is that upon seeing a mostly right answer, they would stop reading and make it their choice. We have work to do on test taking strategy in this regard

And how I resent having to do so, taking precious time away from learning something that really matters.

To do well, deep, careful, analytical thinking is required. I hope we have trained them in those habits of mind sufficiently that they transfer to the test setting. There will be no test prep week for PACT. Preparation will have to come in the lessons every day.

We administered the science test to gather baseline data. It was comprehensive, both deep and broad. And we thought the old basic skills science test was hard! I teased my teachers that if we did well on this test, our students would be in the running for the Nobel Prize. How much they were expected to know -- far more than I myself knew in the sixth grade, or tenth, or twelfth.

But maybe it's just me, because the students did not demonstrate or express any particular frustration.

Something will have to give

Still, there is too much to know. Something is going to have to give if these tests and report cards are to stay in place. What will that be? Longer school days? Saturday school? Year round school? Looping? All of the foregoing?

Reading is the basic skill required for all the tests, and I was struck with the essential role that critical reading played in each day's test, regardless of the subject area tested. Every teacher needs to know how to teach critical reading skills. Mosaic of Thought will be the summer book club selection this year.

Well, five days are used up. There was little business as usual. As an antidote to all the sitting and quiet, we scheduled fresh-air time daily. The teachers and students were ready for it.

No homework was assigned for the week as a kind of trade off for the hours of intense concentration we were requiring, sustained quiet and inactivity that runs so contrary to everything we believe a middle school child needs. But I promised not to whine, and here I did it. Sorry. It just slipped.

Countdowns on the chalkboards

We had 45-minute instructional periods for the remainder of the day when we are accustomed to 85. Teachers wondered how they used to teach in 50-minute blocks and said they felt like they were in some sort of fast forward mode.

We passed out Snickers Bars to teachers in the test bins on this last day of testing. They were told to dress in their school shirts and jeans, a rare departure from the usual dress. The atmosphere here on Friday was one of general relief all around. PACT was, at long last, over.

Student attention now turns to oral presentations of their year long research projects, which they will present to their classes and parents in two weeks. But first, there's field day and awards ceremonies and the yearbook delivery, a chance to let down before the final push toward exam week.

Where has the year gone? Poof. It is May. Countdowns appear on chalkboards throughout the school. And there's still so much to learn.

Entry # 18: We Have Been Tested

Entry # 18:
We Have Been Tested