A teacher in suburban New York sent the following poem, which she wrote after proctoring the ELA test for her 6th graders:
Empathy on ELA Day
I cringe
As I sharpen
A pencil
The whine and grind
Of the sharpener
Shaving curls of wood
Punctures the thoughts
Of my students
As they write furiously
Filling the booklet
With the whisper-scratch
Of penciled thoughts.
I can taste
The tension
And anxiety.
Faces fixed
With frowns
Instead of the smiles
I usually see.
Hands popping up
Randomly
In my perfectly
Arranged rows–
A bathroom break
A pencil blunted
A question
I am forbidden
To answer.
All I can say is,
“I cannot answer that.”
I shut off
That nurturing drive
Thinking about how
I usually answer
Hundreds of questions
every day
As a sixth grade teacher.
I announce
“You have ten more
minutes to complete
the test.”
Startled and panicked
Many dig in harder
And write faster
Rushing the clock.
Don’t worry–
Our torture
Will
Soon
Be
Over.
Janie Fitzgerald
~ April 3, 2014
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Beautiful poem written by a compassionate educator. So incredibly sad.
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NYSED has scheduled the ELA Regents exam for the first day of Ramadan. Many of our Muslim students are also Eng Lang Learners. The exam starts at 1:15 in the afternoon which means many of our Muslim students will have been fasting for hours. I wonder how that figures into VAM?
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“I wonder how that figures into VAM?”
Cut it out, now. You’re not supposed to even begin to think that you have the right and ability to question the TESTING GODS and their plans.
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Touching and poignant poem, The sadness of this whole testing scene is
that our students will be trained see their test scores as the “real” measure of success
as opposed to writing poems or personal essays…the common core’s thrust is to
kill creativity–our students and our own.
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“. . . our students will be trained see their test scores as the “real” measure of success. . . ”
From Wilson (and my comment):
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
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This poignant poem got me to thinking…
It is my experience that—fair or unfair, justified or unjustified, logical or illogical—most people most of the time regard the teacher as the “authority in the classroom.”
Hence, it should be no surprise that as parents become uneasy and then fighting mad about the misuses and abuses of testing, they are going to focus much of their outrage on teachers in particular.
It’s a typical rheephorm twofer: they require teaching staff to carry out abusive practices but they let their subordinates (i.e., teachers, aides, etc.) shoulder the responsibility for their toxic mandates.
Everyone in a classroom has to make up his or her mind as an individual, but the circumstances are making silence look like compliance.
Opt out. It is one of the human rights issues of our time.
“If you don’t speak out now when it matters, when would it matter for you to speak out?” [Jim Hightower]
Just my way of looking at things…
😎
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Rene,
Here it is. I’m pretty excited, but I don’t want to be thought of as a braggart! 😉
Have a great weekend.
Take care, Janie
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