Susan Fedor/00-01/Diary Entry 2

Entry # 2: Pick Your Battles

At 6:00 PM last Friday, I was just finishing my mail. I came upon a folder of compositions sent my way by a language arts teacher. She had penciled on the cover: "I know you are busy, but you will enjoy reading these."

She described the contents as homework she had requested of her students' parents during our recent testing week. (The assignment was to write a response to the prompt: "Am I overprotective or just a good parent?")

I let out an audible cheer at her clever reaction to a situation that has frustrated all of us. These high spirits were not a result of the parent writing but at a teacher's finding a win-win answer to a contentious situation.

This fall, under pressure from parents, I had agreed that no student homework would be assigned during testing week. This decision followed a skirmish that can best be described as " Fedor's Last Stand."

To understand how I found myself on this battleground, you need to know how obsessive I am in maximizing time on task to increase learning. That big battle is always worth the fight, but this minor incursion was not in the category of battle-worthy issues.

I forgot that.

To recap: We have just finished two days of standardized testing, a fall administration of the Terra Nova. Parents of incoming sixth graders learned of my unusual stand in favor of assigning test-week homework through the grapevine, during last spring's administration of the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test (PACT). They were incensed then and now. What I proposed was heresy.

Students never had homework during testing in elementary school. It was a tradition! What was I thinking? Of course, I was thinking that these tests only last a small part of the day. No study was going on in preparation for them. The rest of the day was for learning, so maybe students could prepare for it. Read a little? Do a little math?

So, I persisted. School as usual: homework, classwork, and a normal routine.

"No way, " said the parents. "Children need to rest." (Meaning: watch TV and instant-message on AOL) "No fair," said the students, "You 're not allowed to assign us work during testing!"

Tensions escalate

More background: Last spring, during the tense, statewide testing week, I discussed with my teacher leadership team the benefits of continuing a school schedule that was as close to normal as possible.

Television and newspaper ads had heightened the level of concern, and students were stressed. I saw a gel pen tattoo, "PACT SUCKS," on the back of one' child's hand.

I sympathized. Even the teachers' offspring were calling from the elementary schools with test anxiety attacks. "Why not make the testing days as normal as possible in every way," I wondered. It seemed to me that this would be a strategy to calm frazzled nerves.

But, no. Parent complaints were first aired at our School Improvement Council. I did not listen to them closely enough, and they were taken to the Superintendent's Parents Advisory Cabinet. Then I received word that it indeed was district practice (if not policy, as the parents had asserted) that students not be assigned homework during standardized testing time. This fall, I capitulated without a whimper. Well, maybe a sigh of resignation.

Learning to bend

So, what did I learn from this? (My sister always asks me that question when I describe some school day trial to her.) I learned that I can lose a point today to perhaps win down the road. I learned not to get pulled into a situation that was really not critical. Was I right?

Was I wrong? Somehow that turns out to be a moot point, too.

I learned to bend rather than to be broken by the winds of opposition. And I learned that a solution may come when you least expect it in a form you would not have even dreamed. How sweet!

Embedded in my re-learning about battles worth fighting this week was an unexpected reminder about the need to heed the anxieties of parents even as I heed those of their children. Earlier this week, I responded to a question from a reader on this exact point. The answer that I gave was improved upon in one of the parent essays I found in my folder late Friday afternoon, the "homework-for-parents-not-for-kids-during-test-week" assignment designed by my clever teacher.

This dad begins his paper noting amazement that his daughter, a ballerina for eight years, is now enthralled with the clarinet. He marvels at the surprises to come before wandering back to the assigned topic. He agonizes over walking his daughter to the bus stop (no longer cool in her eyes) and then finds a solution. He brings along the family pet, "Cinnamon", the wonder dog, for a morning walk.

He concludes his essay with the comment that he is learning to deal with his over-protectiveness, but that it is not easy. "You see, Ashley is my first and only child, and I have never walked this way before."

It is a poignant reminder.