Tests.

I haven’t really written about school all that much, I’m staring to feel bad about that.  Particularly because teaching is my primary job here and everything else is supposed to come second to it.  So, here comes a post about school…

Tests.  Giving tests really sucks.  It sucks because whenever you give a test, it also means you have to grade the test. You have to spend countless hours trying to decipher chicken scratch handwriting, all the while trying to remain calm and fair as you slowly start to realize that the more you grade, the more you start to realize that you’re the concepts you spent the past few weeks trying to teach your students clearly didn’t stick.  Even though the test was open book.  And they had all the answers in the pages right underneath their noses.

I failed my fair shares of tests in my time.  Biology in high school was not my forte; I repeated calculus 2 in college.  Jeez, it took me three tries just to get my learners permit.  I thought it felt pretty bad to fail a test, but I never once thought about the other side of the equation.  How does it feel to be a teacher and give out so many failing grades?  Well, I know now.  It sucks.  6 out of 20 here, 4 out of 20 there; on more than one occasion some students only earned a half of a point on the entire test.  These are 12^th graders; and this was a test about addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division! 

It’s hard not to blame myself for their failures. Perhaps I could have been more thorough. Perhaps I could have been more clear with my explanations.  Perhaps I could have given more homework.  Perhaps I could have made the test easier.  Perhaps I could have done a better job.

Fortunately, there were some shining stars in the group, and not everyone bombed completely.  There were some glorious outliers and I’ve since discovered that erratically distributed among the 40 or 50 kids in each of my turma’s are some pretty talented people.  I understand that not everyone is going to get the concepts.  Just like in the states, sometimes it just won’t stick.  But, there are those which will receive, process, and save the messages I’m sending them.  Those are the students that will make it all worthwhile.  They always say to focus on the little things, so I guess that’s what I’ll try to do.

Round two of tests is in a few weeks.  Next time they actually be tested on material that should be new to them.  That’s when things will get real interesting…