Friday, April 04, 2014

Isn't childbirth grounds for a make-up test?

39/40

So I have a lot of friends who are teachers and even more who are parents, and they've all been going completely spastic lately about whichever standardized testing their kids and/or students are doing this time of year. Like posting on Facebook, "All prayers and good thoughts welcome as Ava Gracelynne's 8th-grade class takes the BARG test this week!" or "Double whammy -- my two are both doing the SPRAT test today and tomorrow! But I think they'll knock it out of the park! Fingers crossed!" or "Oh dear Shatner, just help my students get through DERP week!"

The thing is, though, I used to fucking LOVE standardized testing. LOVE it. It helped that I was always in like the 100th percentile, so the shit was eaaaazzzy, but also it was awesome to have the school routine broken up like that. Hours-long chunks, sometimes even whole days or several whole days, given over to the silent, orderly, deeply peaceful filling out of tiny circles with a #2 pencil. Nobody talks, you don't get more algebra homework, you take a break for some Chee-tos and Coke and then get right back to it (pencils freshly sharpened). It was heaven, or as close as you could get while you were attending public school.



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