My pale, late-spring skin is being burned by the fluorescent lighting. My brain kicked in at 3AM in spite of the fact I went to sleep at 10:45PM – a new early for me. Early morning staff meeting to review the proctoring procedures for the state test: one funny brave teacher presented her group’s poster in a sardonic parody: just what we needed. But in seriousness, and I’m sure this is true for other states, what we are not allowed to do is way more telling about instruction than what we are allowed to do. We are not allowed to have anything that may remotely help them or trigger some learning on the walls, such as reading strategies, or are we allowed to read a question to a struggling English learner if they don’t ask. The sloppy mixed messages paint a pretense of “assessing their knowledge,” while many of us suspect it’s a test of how well they take this test, this specific test, which is unlike any other life experience they may encounter. Is that what teachers mean when they say something is inauthentic?
Oh well. I’m grumpy. I check m Google page, and see this image:
Just a small reminder of some bigger things.
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