I'm sitting in my darkened classroom with a fan blowing gently. My most busy-nudgy-needy-wiggly-challenging class of freshmen is taking their Final Exam.
I just checked the weather website, and it says it's going to be 86 degrees today.
I am so glad these kids are taking my final with me on the first exam day, in the morning, in the quiet. I worry, however, about the final they take later, when it is closer to 86 degrees, when their hands are more cramped...and about those they will take next week. I wonder about so many things every time I give finals to wildly diverse kids...for whom I've differentiated all year. I wonder. And I worry.
So here is the list of worries, off the top of my head: I worry about exams that don't test what is important. I worry that some exams are poorly constructed and, therefore, don't actually find out what the kids know. I worry about kids who don't test well. I worry that some kids are too hungry or sad or frustrated to pay attention to the exam. I worry that the weather (or shoes that are too tight, or the way another kid pops his gum, or...) make the test-taking setting less than ideal. And mostly, I worry about the stress exams place on kids.
***Readers of this entry should know that the first exam block is over, we've had a break, and now I am writing during my second exam block. This second group of kids are my "better students" (they must offer honors history or math or science during the previous class - that's why I don't have these "better students" mixed in with the crowd I had last block. But wait. That's a topic for another blog entry.) ***
Back to the topic at hand - exams. While walking down the hall after break, I was in front of one of my sweetest, hardest-working, most learning disabled girls. She was talking with a friend and what she said made me, literally, stop. "I suck." She's 14 years old. She's beautiful. Four years ago I was her 5th grade teacher. I know that she has a gentleness with animals that made me weep. She is a stellar friend. She draws and paints in a style that is uniquely her own, and she creates wonderfully imaginative stories to accompany the drawings of the characters who populate her writing. To say she likes to read is an understatement; she devours books. And her perception of herself is "I suck." Because of an exam. An exam.
A final exam has the power to affect this amazing 14 year old in this way?
What is wrong with this picture?
At its core, differentiated instruction is about changing schools into places where kids are held up and valued because of who they are. It's about moving away from a model where talented, beautiful, amazing kids believe they "suck" because they don't do well on a final exam.
Which leads me to my next worry - grades. Oh. My. Stars. I think I will need to tackle that in another blog entry.
I just checked the weather website, and it says it's going to be 86 degrees today.
I am so glad these kids are taking my final with me on the first exam day, in the morning, in the quiet. I worry, however, about the final they take later, when it is closer to 86 degrees, when their hands are more cramped...and about those they will take next week. I wonder about so many things every time I give finals to wildly diverse kids...for whom I've differentiated all year. I wonder. And I worry.
So here is the list of worries, off the top of my head: I worry about exams that don't test what is important. I worry that some exams are poorly constructed and, therefore, don't actually find out what the kids know. I worry about kids who don't test well. I worry that some kids are too hungry or sad or frustrated to pay attention to the exam. I worry that the weather (or shoes that are too tight, or the way another kid pops his gum, or...) make the test-taking setting less than ideal. And mostly, I worry about the stress exams place on kids.
***Readers of this entry should know that the first exam block is over, we've had a break, and now I am writing during my second exam block. This second group of kids are my "better students" (they must offer honors history or math or science during the previous class - that's why I don't have these "better students" mixed in with the crowd I had last block. But wait. That's a topic for another blog entry.) ***
Back to the topic at hand - exams. While walking down the hall after break, I was in front of one of my sweetest, hardest-working, most learning disabled girls. She was talking with a friend and what she said made me, literally, stop. "I suck." She's 14 years old. She's beautiful. Four years ago I was her 5th grade teacher. I know that she has a gentleness with animals that made me weep. She is a stellar friend. She draws and paints in a style that is uniquely her own, and she creates wonderfully imaginative stories to accompany the drawings of the characters who populate her writing. To say she likes to read is an understatement; she devours books. And her perception of herself is "I suck." Because of an exam. An exam.
A final exam has the power to affect this amazing 14 year old in this way?
What is wrong with this picture?
At its core, differentiated instruction is about changing schools into places where kids are held up and valued because of who they are. It's about moving away from a model where talented, beautiful, amazing kids believe they "suck" because they don't do well on a final exam.
Which leads me to my next worry - grades. Oh. My. Stars. I think I will need to tackle that in another blog entry.