This morning started out a terrible muddy mess. It started to rain around 2am and was really coming down when I got up at 5am. Thankfully, hot coffee was waiting on me! I was able to shower, dress, and make lunch in record time. I even caught a little of the weather and saw some northern schools were closing because of the impending snow.
I persevered and get to work on time. Only to be held captive by the fingerprint machine that is our time clock. For some reason I am its number one target and this morning it took ten minutes to clock in. Still I was determined to make the best of my day. I had a wonderful lesson planned for the day, and it is the day before the writing test. All is good!
So life pretty much perked along till snow starts to fall. We live in Georgia just south of Metro Atlanta and we don't really get a lot of snow. And these were big old flakes coming down, but not sticking. Unfortunately, little southern children are fascinated by snowflakes (whether they are sticking or not), and suddenly I held no magical spell on them. Visions of snowmen, a day out of school, and (if they were lucky) getting to go home early were all they could think about.
Sadly, my grownup self could only think "we've got one day before the writing test." My students only wanted to look out the window and be 10-11 year old kids. I wanted them to write a persuasive piece and have one more day of practice before tomorrow. Why couldn't they see how important it was to me that they produce a great masterpiece tomorrow? All they could do was look out the window.
It was then that I decided I don't like the pressure of high stakes testing. It is only high stakes to me! Ten and eleven year olds need to get to look out the window and see snow (Something they don't see very often, I've lived here 18 years and this is only the fourth snow I remember.) They need to be children and enjoy life!
So I'm glad the writing test wasn't today, because I think I'd be in trouble with all the non-writing that was going on. If my kiddos are lucky tomorrow we will have snow (but I doubt it), and that would be a good thing!
3 comments:
I agree that the idea of "high stakes testing" is lost on the kids...throw in a little bit of soft, white precipitation and you've definitely lost your audience.
Something tells me that your kiddos need the snow more than they need that dratted test!
So happy for slice of life as it gets me around the internet more and to places like your lovely blog!
Jane
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