Over Testing and
Under Teaching
Just with this title alone I could go on a rant.
Here in New Jersey, we have entered a phase of a countdown to the state ASK (Assessment
of Skills and Knowledge) testing soon to be replaced by the PARCC (Partnership
for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers). In our school, we have
state required testing at all four of our grades, fifth through eighth.
The state reporting has changed so now we are going
to be even more scrutinized by data that is published in the papers. I would be
hard pressed to find anyone other than educators that will be able to decipher what
the state is reporting. Maybe it will come with a decoder ring.
Regardless, we cannot destroy the enthusiasm that is
supposed to be at school when the kids get there. I’ll stop the rage right here
but visit the link at the bottom to see what I’m talking about.
I’ll shift gears to a wonderful event we had last
evening to connect our students and have some fun. We call it Almost Anything
Goes (AAG).
Almost Anything Goes is an annual nighttime event
our school has every year. We pack our gymnasium with ten teams that perform
quirky relay races and activities. The culmination is an obstacle course where
the team captain gets a shaving cream pie in the face. The premise is
team-building and fun.
One of the funniest sights is the opening “act”: the
Balloon Break Relay. Balloons are filled with helium and tied to chairs. Each
team member runs the length of the floor, grabs a balloon, and sits on it to burst
it. The team member races back across the floor to tag the next person and so
on until all the balloons are broken.
Excerpt from a letter sent by a student:
I
had so much fun at Almost Anything Goes last night. ………….We work so well
together no matter who we are with. At AAG, everyone was with new people. Right
from the start my team was stretching, talking, making up names, cheers, and
figuring out plans. As we looked around the room, every team was together and
talking, I was so happy to see our school as one big, happy family. I have
always wanted to make a change in people’s lives. That is what you do each and
every day. Thank you for all your determination and courage to make this school
a great place to be. I love every single event. You rock!
It was a nice reprieve from the title of this
section.
“Reducing children to a test score is the worst form
of identity theft we could commit in schools.” Stephen Covey
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