The classes during testing? About twenty-five minutes long.
Get through a book? I'll be lucky to get through a sentence.
My normally sunny demeanor (stop laughing -- I can hear you through the computer screen) is replaced by a drill-sergeant attitude. "You have to keep up with me," I announce every day, "or we will leave you behind in the dust." A few times kids ask a question about something we've already covered and covered again and recovered. "No," I assure them, "I will not answer that a fifth time. Keep up or be left behind. Period."
This is not the teacher I want to be. This is the teacher that six days of state testing created. Really. If you're going to test my students, then don't do it with three weeks left and counting. Plus, every subject has end-of-year tests of our own to give: Common Assessments, District Determined Measures, reading growth, grammar, unit wrap-up tests...
When the hell are we supposed to administer these tests? That, my friends, is the true million-dollar question.
