The anxiety of testing

The weather this week in Chicago has been FABULOUS! For three days it was sunny and in the high 60's and low 70's. Everything looked and smelled fresh! As I was waiting for the El on Tuesday, I was actually sweating...it was quite lovely! Unfortunatly, Chicago Public Schools scheduled our ISAT standardized testing to be the same week as this amazing weather. So although I was physically enjoying the weather, I have been emotionally stressed out to the max this week.

For those of you non-educators reading this, administrating a high stakes standardized test to your own students (who you have literally spent every ounce of energy and money on so they will somehow learn something!) is emotionally grueling and exhausting. I am walking around the room, observing my brightest students make stupid multiple choice choices, and wanting to whisper, "Are you sure about that?" But knowing that I can't... shouldn't... so I won't.. I think. The good news is that these tests are over with tomorrow. They have given me a literal pain in the back of my neck for the past month. So now crazy insane test prep is over and I can go back to my regular teaching. That will be nice. But I know I will still have this pervading question in the back of my mind: "HOW DID THEY DO???" For schools like mine with low test scores, we live or die by this test. So not only do I want my students to be successful for their own sakes, I need them to be successful for the sake of my school and to protect my job. Yikes!

I do sometimes think longlingly to my year as a receptionist. All that was expected of me was to be friendly and punctual. I was a great receptionist! But there are those teaching moments that are positively lovely. When I look around the room and see my students engaged, or when a student asks a "text book question" or when Dushuntae makes me laugh so hard I have to go into the hallway. And they give me the hope to carry on in this profession.