Daily Archives: May 14, 2012

State Testing…and etc.

May 14, 2012
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Boy howdy, I’m really milking this one, huh? I think, after a week and a half, we’re up to number three on our list of teacher tips for state testing. (This pace reminds me of the classic Sr. Mary Elephant bit from Cheech and Chong back in the day: “Now class, Sr. Rosetta Stone has told me that your assignment for the past two months has been to write an essay…”  And then none of them have it finished yet.)  Sister Mary Elephant Ok. So far we have: 1. Teach ‘em to game the test. 2. Teach ‘em how to erase. So, on to number three. 3. Somehow get them to buy into the conflicting ideas that a) the test is important to them and b) not to worry. News alert: Unless they are gluey high-schoolers in danger of failing the graduation requirement or unless they have parents who take these scores seriously, right now there really is no down side to doing poorly, other than pride. Our VP tries to scare the 8th graders by saying the high school (yes, in our town there’s only one) will take away their electives and put

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Oh Raffle King, Oh Raffle King…

(Sung — way off key, and sort of warbley — to the tune of “Oh Christmas Tree.”) I guess we need to talk about the King. On Wednesdays, after we go over the vocabulary homework, and discuss the words, I give them a vocabulary pretest. If they ace it (100%), they are exempt from the vocabulary portion of the Friday test. I used to have one of them flip a coin to decide whether or not I let them use their “cheat sheet” — the homework page we just went over and corrected — on the pretest. What they don’t believe when I tell them — even though it’s true — is that, on average, their scores on the pretest are lower when they use the cheat sheets, and fewer of them get an exemption. But they like to think it’s a security blanket, so I play along. Then I discovered the King. I would give you the URL of his creator’s web site, but he has some other, shall we say, inappropriate shtuff. (You can do a Google search if you really want to check it out.) So I took the liberty of “cloning” the King. If you click [...]

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Mr. Coward has been teaching on the beautiful central coast of California since 1989. He sometimes tweets when he's in the right mood: @mrCinSLO.

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Recent Comments

  • Mrs. M~ commented on Speaking of…Here is another good one for you. What is going on in our country??? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/22/school-warns-students-no-test-no-sports/
  • Mrs K commented on TweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetDude... you haven't tweeted since January. Come back! ;)
  • Meg commented on No Soup for YouWell, cold soup CAN be rather scary... ;) Thanks for the laugh!
  • Heather commented on No Soup for YouGazpacho beats Jhonny any day of the week.
  • Heather commented on MAUS is back. (Rerun)I like the idea of a fairly steep age requirement for an interview project. Interviewing is one of our standards for eighth graders, and I usually have them interview someone about what middle school/junior high was like "back in the day" after reading The Outsiders and Garrison Keillor's anecdote "Something from the Sixties" from
  • Carly Sween commented on Even “Disneyland” is in Danger (Part 1)Sure. I'm all for the sharing idea. :)
  • Carly Sween commented on The PitchI'm in Fairbanks and we rarely have snow days. We don't usually get dumped on. It just starts snowing in October, a little bit at a time, and doesn't melt until April. Temps stay so cold that roads aren't slick. However, the last few years we have had issues with ice. It gets too
  • Mrs. M~ commented on Even “Disneyland” is in Danger (Part 1)I like the discussion board idea--as long as you put your two cents in too! :-) I shudder to think where our country is headed with all of this testing and corporate involvement. OMG, Survivor. As one of my other favorite bloggers put it, "Survivor’s fun sponge was finally squeezed, drenching
  • Meg commented on Even “Disneyland” is in Danger (Part 1)I find it funny how much the US is trying to change the system to "up the test scores" when China is trying to figure out how we produces such creative and innovative thinkers. Seriously, China, Japan, all of those 'high test score' countries are sending people over to the states to learn how
  • Mrs. M~ commented on The Pitch@Carly, how do you handle snow days in Alaska? Do you have to make them up? I imagine you must have tons of issues with that every year. This year we had a day of school called off because it was too cold--that has never happened before. You must deal with
  • Carly Sween commented on The PitchHad to laugh about the snow comments. I teach in Alaska so we win the God-awful winter award every year. Yes, it was 20 below this morning. We are having an unusually cold spring. Supposed to be great northern lights tonight, though, so that gives us something to look forward to. Always enjoy your
  • Mrs. M~ commented on The PitchYes, yes, FIVE snow days in the last three months, and two of them were this week. In APRIL. This has been a god-awful winter. People are becoming almost laughingly crabby and morose. To the south of us they got a terrible ice storm, and lots of people have been without
  • Mrs. M~ commented on Retirement is for WimpsAnd here is one more, as I sit at home during our 5th snow day of the "spring!" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randy-turner/a-warning-to-young-people_b_3033304.html
  • Mrs. M~ commented on Retirement is for WimpsJust in case you have not seen this, check this out: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/09/teacher-resignation-letter-gerald-conti_n_3046595.html
  • Mrs. M~ commented on Retirement is for WimpsYou bring up a good point--will blogs like this even be around in 10 years? Will we all be wearing those goofy Google glasses by then? I am still waiting for all of the Jetson's inventions to come to reality, by the way. THAT would be a good use of technology.

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