...And now I can breathe a sigh of relief

The BIG FAT STANDARDIZED TESTS are over!! What a relief. We took them Tuesday through Friday and it felt like longer. The test schedule was broken down into 2 hour segments (the first day being the writing assessment and the other 3 days were an hour of reading comprehension and an hour of math), which isn't so bad. I tried to tell the kids that I remember when I was in school that the state tests were all day. You tested all day, with just lunch and recess as a break. Could you imagine this generation (ones with an attention span of a gnat), sitting in a desk all day long taking a test? Yikes! I think the 2 hour segment is long enough.

I tried to peek at some of their tests (especially the writing one), and check out how they were doing. Most seemed to do pretty well. That test is so hard to analyze as a teacher though, since some just want it to be over, so they just rush. And others get stressed out at the end (which was like me as a student) and kinda give up. You hope that most of them care enough about it to try their best. It at least looked like the majority did. I guess we'll see when the scores come back, right?

I'm also glad testing week is over so we can get back to our regular schedule. I guess because of lunches, the day was broken down by taking test with 8th period class from 9-11 and then going to 3rd period and continuing from there and having 1st and 2nd period at the end of the day. I don't know who was more out of whack by the switch: the students or the teachers! We had this same schedule about a month ago, when we did a little version of the state test, but it was only for the day. This was 4 days!! I'll be glad to have my 1st/2nd period kids back in the morning. When they're still half asleep. At the end of the day is apparently their prime. And it just about made me crazy.

Needless to say, we are all able to relax a little and pray that the next 6 weeks go by without much incident. Once the BIG TEST is over, some of the kids sort of check out. They figure the school year is over already. Not so. And how do you keep them motivated to keep working and keep caring? That's the magic question!!