Is it good to cram square pegs into round holes?

Well, it is crunch time in Louisiana.....the week before the dreded testing begins all over the state in all schools. I know there has always been testing, but this high stakes testing is something else. Not only are the students judged by the test, but the teachers and ultimately the schools and the school district. The pressure is on EVERYONE.

I have mixed feelings about the testing. I think there might be too much emphasis on this test, but then again how do we gage the students' progress? I feel for the kids who have test anxiety. I was not the worst case out there, but I know my nerves were rather frazzled whenever I took any sort of tests. The last standardized test I took was the Praxis for Secondary English Certification. The guy behind me snuffed, snorted, coughed and wheezed his way through the test. I think I read everything numerous times because I was totally distracted by the cacaphony of various flem sounds. I wanted to wring his neck by the end. Needless to say I didn't finish, but I got a pretty good score, so I wonder if I would have done a lot better without Mr. Plague behind me. Another thing I did was I didn't look over any Shakespeare stuff as everyone I talked to who had taken this test said there were maybe three questions on there about Shakespearian characters, plays and poetry. WRONG. It was upsetting there were so many different question concerning characters and matching them with the correct play. I had to guess at most of that....I couldn't remember who was in which play. They didn't ask me questions like, "Lady Macbeth was a prominent character in which Shakespearian play?" They were more obscure characters....most I had heard of but was not quite sure. I could narrow it down to two and then it was the luck of the draw.

Anyway, back to this testing thing. I am spending this week reviewing the "Using Informational Resources" portion of the test. It is the library part....as everyone calls it. Students are given a booklet of sources....a magazine article, a web page, an index, an encyclopedia article, a table of contents and a copyright page and the students have to make conclusions. Now these questions are sometimes a bit obtuse because it will turn out that two answers are suitable, but one question is BETTER. Those make me nuts. Also, 8th graders are asked to write a bibliographic entry using a list of MLA models. This whole model concept is just greek to some students. I had to laugh when one of the new teachers mentioned how she had been trying to teach them to do a bibliography and they kept copying down the examples in place of the actual information from THEIR source. I have seen this over and over and no matter how many times I say, "Don't copy this....use it for your model, example, template, format......" it just doesn't seem to sink in. Girls usually do much better than the boys, but the idea of using it just for an example seems to mystify about 40-60% of the males. I tend to think there is a readiness factor here. All those commas, underlines, quotations and colons are just too much for them. And the fact the second line is indented .....(a hanging indent) well, forget that. Even some GT kids can't seem to get that. CRAZY!!! I have showed them and sat individually and talked to them step by step, but then when they have to do it alone......it is like they never heard one thing I said. Man!!!!! It is a wonder I have any hair.

We had a class in 11th grade called, "The Term Paper" . It was half the year and we learned all those fun things...foot notes, bibliographies and such. We kept a box of note cards with our info and our sources. It was a huge deal, but it was understood that kids under 16 just didn't have what it took for all that detail. I am beginning to see the wisdom in that. We just had to learn it before hitting the hallowed halls of higher education and I think it was fine.

I actually took my son out of the gifted and talented program in second grade when he came home all upset because he had lost his bibliography cards in the woods on his way home from school. He cut through a path on his bike and the card flew all over. He was freaking out and then he started telling me about being in trouble for having his colons and commas in the wrong places. I thought that second grade was WAY too early to have an ulcer over a term paper. He told me, "Mom, if you don't get me out of there I will mark all the wrong answers on the CAT (California Achievement Test). You know I know the right ones, and I WILL put the wrong ones." I would have taken him out without the threat.

Back to testing.....some people are totally against testing at all, but then how will we know? I am just wondering if the test itself isn't a bit advanced. I look at the practice test and I am thankful I didn't have to take it when I was an 8th grader. There is a lot of writing and for students who have trouble reading this is especially tough. Then there is the idea there are so many different types of intelligence. I guess that has always been that way. Kids who were good with their hands and could fix anything or those who were very artistic sometimes were not the best academic students, but somehow they ended up feeling inferior. I believe we are comparing apples and oranges and trying to get every kid to fit into the round hole when in fact they are a square peg. Nothing wrong with square pegs....and I go even further....without those square pegs this would be a really boring world with a lot of broken stuff!