ISTEP, ECA, PSAT, UGH

I teach high school English.  This year I am teaching sophomore literature, Indiana Literature, and a class of students who are repeating freshman lit.  My classes are pretty full, some have over 30 students, some just under, so all total I see about 170 students each day.  It has become harder and harder for me to get to know all their names as I get older, and that bothers me. It hurts me when I call a student by the wrong name because I see in their eyes that they must not be important to me.  That is not it at all.  It is that I have three boys in one class who all are brown headed and wear their hair the same way, hang out together in class and I can't tell one from another. Or that I have three Zachs in one class, three Allisons in another, three Alexis in two others, two Brayden's (different spellings), and two Madisons.  I don't know why I can't keep it straight.

What does help me to remember them is to get to know them.  I try really hard to do this. I ask them questions, try to figure the things that make them unique. When assigning essays, I like to assign writing that they can personalize, because I learn much about these kids when I read them.  A few years ago our department decided to change our freshman and sophomore classes from semester long to year long so that we could really learn and get to know our students learning styles.  I have loved it. I create a strong bond between the kids in my sophomore classes unlike any other. I know them, I know how they learn, I recognize their writing without having their name written on their paper.  I can't help but think this helps them learn better.  

Then ISTEP testing starts and I see these kids have to go into a room with a computer and take a written test where all answers should be the same and it angers me. How in the world does someone who doesn't even know these kids get to JUDGE them after a few hours of a test.  I don't know if the test contains words they may struggle with, I don't know if the questions are biased against my students and the experiences they have been faced with; but I do know that more than one of my students will give up at the first stumbling block they encounter if someone doesn't encourage them to keep trying.  I do know that there might be one of them who was kicked out of his home last night, and another may not have slept due to the new baby at home who cried all night. I also know there are many students who have skills and talents that have nothing to do with how they take a test. Skills like working a farm, like raising the crops that provide the food we eat; like painting a picture that someday may bring joy to someone in another country even; or like kindness and compassion that can help others through difficult situations. Important skills. Necessary skills.  Skills not tested on these tests.  Yet these students will all be judged the same way and that is just not right.  

Yesterday I passed out the PSAT results to a few of my students.  One very bright young man informed me that during the PSAT, he had to use the restroom so badly he could not concentrate.  I said why didn't you ask to be excused, and he said he did but they would not let him. So he took most of the test miserably needing to relieve himself. Really? I bet those results were a fair showing of his ability. Other students who I know are very bright and listen carefully in class and pick up on deep analyzing thoughts others their age might miss have difficulty reading due to learning disabilities such as dyslexia and their tests will not be an accurate measure of their true knowledge and ability.  It saddens me.  No, it angers me.  I spent four years getting a degree in Education to teach kids English. Another two years for a Master's degree and NEVER did I learn that the best way to value a child or a teacher's ability would be to test them all in the same manner. In fact, we were consistently told to differentiate our lessons and our assessments to envelope all students and their different learning styles.  So when your child gets their results, good or bad, remember that those scores are just a piece of a much larger puzzle of your child's ability.  Parents know this, teachers know this.  It is just the government who can not quite figure it out.