Friday, May 11, 2007
Page 11
AT THE SIDEBAR (Column) Annual Exams Test Mom’s Patience
By J’AMY PACHECO
Ah, Spring. The season in which the weather goes from miserable to pleasant; when tender green plantlets unfurl, bringing a promise of coming beauty; when mother birds can be seen lovingly tending their nests, and when every child of school age spends hours huddled over stacks of school books, muttering about homework and tests while their parents shout at them to “Hurry up and finish your homework!”
If you have a child who spent even a moment in school, you likely feel my pain. Because May brings not only those April-showers-nurtured flowers, but it also brings the dreaded annual state tests for elementary school students.
I know this, because I am the mother of a fifth-grade student. Lately, however, I’ve been less of a mother and more of a taskmaster — pretty much the screaming banshee type.
Every year, California schools administer a series of tests to their students. The process, called Standardized Testing and Reporting, takes about two weeks and is, as I understand it, intended to show the world how adept (or inept) a particular school is at teaching its students.
I’m sure there is a much less inflammatory description of STAR testing somewhere, but as a parent, I can tell you that’s what it’s all about. Test scores for individual schools are usually released in late summer, and are printed in local newspapers.
If your school does well, your kid is in. If your school performs poorly as a whole, you’re raising an idiot, and may as well end the ordeal and enroll your child in trade school.
Preparation for these tests usually starts about a month in advance of the first test date. It’s been my observation that preparation pretty much consists of homework packets designed to see what students remember from the beginning of the school year – and to squeeze in whatever the teacher hasn’t quite gotten around to covering in class.
This might not be such a big deal at our house if my daughter didn’t have separate teachers for math, science, and her other subjects. Each of them is apparently anxious for her to succeed in their own area, and oblivious to the fact that the other teachers are just as anxious.
On a recent night, for example, she brought home four science packets, a language arts packet and a math packet containing 75 problems to be solved. On top of all that, she had to prepare for a social studies test that was taking place the next morning. It added up to about four hours of homework — and no television.
Just the math packet would have done me in. It’s a good thing my daughter knows the difference between an obtuse and isosceles triangle, because I’m clueless in algebra. (See what I mean?) Calculations of volume, comparisons of metric measure and division of fractions are all beyond my ability.
Fortunately, my expected role in the testing process is fairly simple. My job is to make sure my student gets a good night’s sleep, and a protein-rich breakfast each day of the testing period.
Breakfast, I can handle. The good night’s sleep is a bit harder, given the volume of homework that fills the evening hours. Yeesh.
You can tell when testing rolls around, because that’s the only time I’ll cook on a weekday morning. Although she could do without the tests, my daughter loves the fact that she gets scrambled eggs with cheese, yogurt and fresh fruit every day for two weeks.
I imagine peanut butter sandwiches in the backseat of the car come as a huge disappointment when the tests are over.
Schools try to make the test sessions pleasant and non-stressful as well. Historically, my daughter’s classes have allowed students to remove their shoes, munch healthy snacks like trail mix and rub worry stones while they’re testing. It sounds to me like testing could actually be fun, if it weren’t for all the brainwork.
I’ll never know, because parents are not allowed at school during testing. I suspect it’s because they don’t want us to see how much fun the kids we’ve yelled at for a month start having once the preparation is over.
Next week, the tests start, and the hard part for me will be over. Except for scrubbing eggs from the skillet, of course.
At least until summer, when I find out if it’s time to start looking for a good trade school…
Copyright 2007, Metropolitan News Company