The kids took a test, and they really tested me

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, I had to venture back into the valley of the shadow of death (aka, the 5th grade hallway) to administer the second round of TAKS tests. The kids who didn't pass their reading and/or math tests the first time around "get" another chance to pass. I had a group of 13 each day (9 were the same both days, 4 swapped out since they only failed one of the tests), and my class had a sub.

I'll state right up front that a few of these kids really DID seem to care that they hadn't passed, and these kids looked like they were making a valiant effort to pass this second time around. More than a handful of them, though, obviously didn't care one bit that they hadn't passed the first time, and this was just another day to be lazy for them.

Here are a few highlights:

-- One kid kept falling asleep, before 10 am even, and when I asked him what time he had gone to bed the night before, he had no idea. Not a good sign for the math test if you can't even read a clock.

-- Any time two molecules bumped against each other, there was apparently enough noise generated for all of the kids to stop working and look around the room.

-- There was no bathroom monitor on the hallway, so the kids were even more prone than ever to want to go to the bathroom 6-10 times an hour.

-- One kid broke 3 pencils in the first 2 hours, before I threatened that he'd have to use a crayon on his test if he broke another.

-- One boy asked to use the bathroom, and I told him yes, but he needed to be back in his seat in 2 minutes. He was able to do this. 15 minutes later, he asked to use the restroom again. I said, "No, you just went 15 minutes ago!" He answered, "I gotta do something else now!" I still said no, and he spent the next 2o minutes bent over in his chair, grabbing his ankles.

-- After lunch, I passed the tests back out to the kids. One kid's test had barely touched his desk when he was already raising his hand to tell me he was done. Way to take the advice, "Don't turn in your test before lunch" to the absolute letter!! (Turns out he had forgotten to fill in one answer on his bubble sheet, and it took him another hour -- and 3 more attempts to turn it in -- before he finally found it.)

-- One kid, after turning in his test, zipped his jacket up over his head and began swaying and rocking, at one point, hitting himself in the face several times. I didn't stop him because I didn't see how it was possible for him to actually lower his intellect that way.

Today, by comparison, was heavenly. I was back with my own kids, and they were happy to see me, and the feeling was mutual.

A Jack Bauer Week

This week was like an extended episode of 24. One of the longest. Weeks. Of. My. Life.

First of all, Monday through Thursday, we had no planning period. No duty-free lunch. No official breaks at all. Monday, the reading specialist very nicely relieved me for 10 minutes, allowing me to use the restroom and check my email, but that was the only time I had away from the kids. Thankfully, Monday was a pretty good day with the kids. It was the day before TAKS, so I had the kids working in small groups on review materials while I conferenced with students individually.

Tuesday and Wednesday, while 5th grade teachers monitored my testing students, I was in the 5th grade hallway, "helping" with review for the Science TAKS. I put helping in quotes, because I doubt that I helped very much. There are some very disruptive 5th graders who had no interest whatsoever in actually preparing for their test, and who wanted nothing more than to subvert the substitute teacher in the room. The sub who happened to be me. They wouldn't stay focused, they wouldn't obey directions, they wouldn't stay quiet.

With a couple of these kids, time out and a minute of talking to helped quell their rebellious streak a bit. One student I did have to send out of the room to the science teacher's room. Even then, it took her 2 minutes of clown walking to finally leave the room, entertaining all of the other students with her idiocracy.

On Tuesday, I received no break at all, and Wednesday I did get relieved a couple of times so I could take a restroom break. Thursday was then the TAKS day, where I had to monitor the kids taking the science test. While infinitely more boring than the prior two days, there wasn't the same discipline problem as before. Test-day-mentality, I guess.

After school on Thursday, while supervising the kids getting on the bus, one of the 5th graders told me that he thought he had done really well on the science test. He said, "I knew all of the answers, because, remember, you helped me yesterday!"

Maybe I did help a bit after all.

Still, never in my life was I happier to return to my classroom than I was on Friday, when I could once again spend the whole day with MY kids. We had a very relaxing day where I didn't task them with classwork at all. They read books, they played math games, they worked with review stations (disguised as games), and we went outside and threw the football around. It was a great day.

Many of them also told me how they thought they had done on the math test. They sounded very confident, telling me that some of the problems "tried to trick me" but that they had checked their answers carefully. Most said they had found and fixed mistakes while reviewing. They all felt they had passed. The teachers who had monitored them had also said that all of the kids really seemed to be taking their time, putting their best efforts into the test, and reviewing their work carefully. Those teachers are not allowed to check the kids' answers for correctness or even tell the kids to go back and show or check their work, but they said that nobody seemed distracted or seemed to be pretending to read while really just wasting time.

Based on all of this, I'm really optimistic about how my kids did. I can't wait to get those results back, but it'll probably take about 3 weeks.


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TAKS for the memories

TAKS day 1 is officially done. Not TAKS day 1 for MY kids, of course, but for the 5th graders who have to take their tests today and tomorrow. Today was the math test, and I was monitoring a group of 19 kids, who seemed to have gone to bed at midnight last night, judging by how often they kept dozing off.

At least none of them snored loudly or drooled on their papers. That's always a mess. But there were 3 kids who fell asleep BEFORE handing in their tests, and one of those fell asleep less than an hour into the test! AFTER the test, there were more like 10 or 11 who nodded off.

I haven't seen the movie "Little Fockers" yet, but I've seen the previews and the first 2 installments, and I kept thinking of De Niro today while walking around the room. No, not so much that I kept wanting to mutter, "Double dose" while looking at some of the kids' answer choices, but more because there were several times I made a gesture very similar to De Niro's, "I'm watching you." You know the one where he points at his eyes then points at Ben Stiller? Any time a kid would look back at me today or look around the room, I would point at my eyes and then downward.

For the most part, the kids seemed to understand my message as, "Keep your eyes on your paper," and nobody mistook it for, "I'm watching my crotch."

When each student finished his/her test, I would collect it, examine it for stray pencil marks or incorrect bubbling, and then ask him/her to sign a paper with the time they had finished. I sincerely hope there were not too many clock questions on this test, because no fewer than 4 kids in my group wrote the wrong time on this sign-out sheet.

After I collected the tests and answer documents, I brought the kids their book(s) to read for the rest of the day (if they weren't sleeping). One boy was midway through "Old Yeller." As I handed it to him, I said, "What a sad story, when they have to shoot him at the end!"

I'm just kidding, though I WAS tempted to spoil the ending.

One of the little girls in my group has a twin sister (they were both in my class 2 years ago) who was taking the test in another room. This little girl only asked to use the restroom one time today, around 1:30, and right as she was leaving the room, her twin sister walked by, headed to the restroom as well. SPOOOOOOKY twin psychic connection!!

In addition to test monitoring making for an incredibly slow and long day, this week is my grade level's turn to have morning duty. So I got to the school before 7AM. Tomorrow is going to seem even worse, because the NCAA college basketball championship game is tonight, starting at 8:23 CST (why so late??), and of course I have to go out with the guys and watch that. THEN, have another 7AM start AND another feet-dragging, soul-draining, skull-boring test monitoring day!

Hump day will never have looked so good!!!

Sheer craziness

So this "plan" came down the pipeline yesterday, and was (sort of) put into effect this morning.

4 of the 3rd grade teachers were conscripted to become tutors for small groups of 5th grade students who did not pass their TAKS tests and will be making a 2nd attempt in a couple of weeks. These teachers will be upstairs with the 5th grade all day, every day, until the next TAKS.

I was in the computer lab with my class when the principal came by to announce this. I don't know if that is the reason I was not chosen to be a tutor, or if the list was already set.

This morning, 2 of the teachers began the tutoring. There were no subs to be found for the other 2 teachers, so they were still in the 3rd grade hall with us.

At around 9:10 am, one of the subs ran into my room to tell me that someone had just thrown a chair in her room. I went over, and sure enough, it was the young man I had tested one-on-one last Thursday. He assured me he had not "thrown" the chair, but rather "pushed" it. (Nevermind that he has a history of chair throwing that would make Bobby Knight proud.)

I LOVE March Madness.

May Madness, I'm not so sure about...

And now we wait

My kids took the TAKS math test today, and by law, I am not allowed to know how they did. Couldn't be in the room with them, couldn't talk to them during the day, couldn't look at any of the problems on the test.

So really all I can do is drink heavily and pray.

Instead of being with my kids, I was a substitute teacher in 5th grade all day long. Wow, I don't miss subbing.

Tomorrow, I am back with my kids, while reading retests go on in every room surrounding me, so I will keep one group for the entire day. Oh, with the door closed, and quietly. My kids will get very acquainted with my good friend, Bill Nye the Science Guy...