Lions, Tigers, and Standardized Tests, Oh My!

Have you even been in a situation where you just mind-scream to someone, willing them to hear you? This is what proctoring standardized tests are like for me. If I were just able to say one thing, give a simple reminder or hint, encourage the student to check again, or go with their gut, I'm sure they could show more than the simple bubbled in answer shows.

The earliest recorded uses of standardized tests are from China, and throughout history, they have been used for many different purposes, as this brief TIME article can tell you. While this article speaks to the the SATs and ACTs, but at the elementary level, state tests can be the stressful equvilent to 7 year-olds. This teacher needs to do more research, as I'm sure there are benefits to standardized tests, right? I mean, I just finished the fifth of five state tests that allow me to get my teaching license, so there must be something to them...or I wouldn't still be taking them in my late twenties!

It's Been a While!

I know it's been a while, but this semester has been quite busy. As I am finished up my maters program, I had two very intensive courses this spring along with my special education concentrated practicum. To catch up on the entire semester would be a very long post indeed. Therefore I am not going to do that here. Instead, I will write weekly (or maybe even more!). Who knows...maybe I'll even continue this blog throughout my teaching career! (Wow...that's really ambitious of me!)

So to do a quick recap of the past four and a half months, not much has changed in my roll as intern, as I have still been switching back and forth between regular education and special education. As two of the teachers I work with have been getting bigger and bigger by the day (relax...they're pregnant...remember?) I have been taking over classes left and right...and loving it!

I have learned so much from my mentor teachers (and they have all in one way become my mentors), but the two I work directly with are amazing. This is a group of women I hope to never loose contact with.

The children have been...wonderful, difficult, amazing, stubborn, fantastic, creative, headstrong, inventive, lazy, clever, hardworking, teachers, humorous, and so much more.