Most of you have probably heard about the state tests that kids around the country are taking from third grade to eight grade. It’s a big deal for schools because a piece of their funding is based on how well the kids do on these tests, as part of the No Child Left Behind law.
As you can imagine there’s a lot of stress involved, mainly for the teachers and the administrators. If you ask a third grader about the tests, they’re sort of clueless.
That is, until the school staff goes crazy.
Weeks of preparing for the tests ensue and everyone keeps telling kids how important the tests are over and over again. Notes come home scaring over-worked parents, and students put aside regular school work to take endless practice tests.
The worse happens right before the actual tests begin, when the notes get personal and start attacking your parenting. “Make sure you feed them a good breakfast.” “Make sure they sleep 8 hours.” Stuff like that. Stuff we’re not doing at home because we’re parents from hell.
Anyway, there was a story in my local Delaware paper today about the tests, which are almost done throughout the state, and it includes a photo on the front page of kids wearing slippers.
No, it’s not a photo of kids at home. It’s a photo of kids at a local high school. Why are they wearing slippers?
This from the principal of the school:
Responding to results from a student survey asking for additional snacks during testing, [the principal] purchased Nutri-Grain Bars, water bottles, fruit and cheese sticks. Stress balls and wrist bracelets were given to students, and each testing day was given a different theme, such as pajama-bottom day, slipper day and college wear day.
I don’t know about you guys, but no educators surveyed me to find out how I felt about tests and what I wanted when I was in school. I probably would have asked for Devil Dogs myself.
Why are we surveying kids and why on earth are we letting them wear slippers to take an important test? How does that really help test results. Don’t crazy people in insane asylums wear slippers.
I guess it’s calming, or at least sleep inducing. But how is this preparing kids for the real stressors they’re going to encounter in the real world?
Last time I checked, you weren’t allowed to wear slippers in the office, on a factory floor, or a construction site.
And your boss isn’t going to care if you get a good nights sleep or if you eat a healthy snack.
This isn’t just a Delaware thing folks. I’ve asked a few friends about this from other states and I did a Google search. It seems educators in every state are trying to take the stress off of students taking these tests.
These tips from a Colorado notice sent to third graders’ homes:
*Make sure your child eats a good breakfast on testing days.
*Many schools ask children to bring a snack during test-
ing week. Provide your child with a healthy snack, such
as juice or a piece of fruit, cheese and crackers, a tortilla,
a sandwich, or a granola bar. Avoid sugary snacks,
such as candy and cookies.*Make your child’s life as stress-free as possible during
test week.
OMG, how the heck do you make a kid’s life stress free?
Should we not make our nine-year-olds set the table for dinner? If they balk at fixing their beds should we just say, “no problem dear. I’m your maidservant this week.”
I know our educators are under pressure. I love them all dearly for breaking their backs to educate our darling/spoiled kids. But I wonder about the message we’re sending to our children.
I’ve written a lot about how early challenges in life, especially tough work, make for stronger more resilient individuals. The majority of CEOs I interviewed in my book, “From the Sandbox to the Corner Office”, all had to bust their butts at tough jobs in their early teens while going to school.
One CEO wanted to work at Yankee stadium, so at age 13 he took a two-hour train trip to the Bronx from his home in Brooklyn to sell peanuts.
This from an interview with Harris Diamond, the CEO of public relations giant Weber Shandwick Worldwide:
The job was no walk to home base. “I never sweated at a job but here I lost weight and came home with my shirt yellow with sweat. I was a mess,” he says. However, he got some of his best pieces of advice early on in his peanut-selling career from another vendor who was in his twenties. He saw Diamond watching the game on one occasion instead of selling his wares. “He said, and I’ll never forget this: ‘there are two types of guys that come here. Those who watch the ball game and those who work. If you came here to watch the game go get a ticket. It’s cheap and easy. If you came here to work understand why you’re here.’”
We seem to be imposing our own stress upon our kids today, and I mean me as well. And I’m not sure about the fluffy tools we’re arming them with to deal with our anxieties.
OK, got to put on my slippers and get back to work.
March 19th, 2009 at 11:32 am
The thing that will serve kids best in this age (and, likely, every age) is this: stressful things happen, but we don’t need to let them control us. Things don’t always happen the way we hope they will, or work out the way we want, but we still get to choose our attitude.
I, for one, tell my kids to ignore the hype about the tests. I’ve never known anyone in this life who can trace either their successes or failures to how well they did on any achievement test in grade school.
I understand what the government was trying to do, but all of this testing is just stupid. If you are going to have a test, make it a test of the skills they were supposed to learn during that year, and administer it about a month before the end of the school year. Those who do not do well would have a month to remediate (or to present the knowledge in another way, if they are among those who are intelligent but horrible test takers), otherwise they can endure something that many students have needed to endure in the past: summer school.
One of my sons, at age 11, has already decided that school is too boring for him (talk about something that gets my dander up!). He’s pulling a D-average right now, though he’s capable of much more (most of his low scores are from him not completing homework–his teachers acknowledge that he knows the material). I’ve made it clear to him that he will repeat the 6th grade if he finishes the year with a D average. He doesn’t like that idea, beacause it would put him in the same class as his next brother. We’ll see what year-end brings.
March 19th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Let’s check out the reality Eve. I have 2 kids in the public system and they perform to a C level in their classes and when they know that this battery of tests are scheduled it is obvious that they are nervous and will tell you they are. By this time they have been prepped how to TAKE the test, completed PRACTICE tests, stressed and informed HOW important it is for them to do well on these tests, and the school system has the nerve to tell me to keep my kid STRESS FREE FOR THEIR EXAM!? What a bunch of BS. What they fail to tell the kids is that the test is really a yardstick to try and measure the performance of the teachers so they put the monkey on the kids and parents backs. I have no control over each teachers methods of teaching yet when marginal efforts are exposed the “school” tries to minimize the impact of their teachings, unless the results are excellent.
It is unacceptable for a child to finish school and not know how to read, do math, write legibly, and understand the English language. Please note that I didn’t mention excel but at a bare minimum have a working knowledge of the basics.
Test the teachers not the students. Identify the problems and correct them rather than point the fingers at parents. Most parents do the best they can with their individual situations. Why should the schools feel free to assign “homework” to parents instead of completing the task themselves?
Come on teachers, all we are asking is that you do what you are paid for - TEACH!
March 20th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Wow, this is a very complicated issue with a response that does something very similar to what the suggestion of wearing slippers does for kids and stress. They are each strategies. 1) Yes, kids should work hard! No doubt but it is true - to put so much pressure on one event, on one day, on one test (that was likely chosen to be used for political and monetary reasons more than because it’s a good, valid test of skills our students should/need to be learning); 2) And quite frankly, being comfortable or feeling comfortable while in a stressful situation is not a bad strategy for a child to learn. Is this one thing going to make the difference? No. Could wearing slippers like being well-nourished be a helpful strategy to cope - Yes! Would I as an adult use that strategy later in the corporate world - maybe, it’s a good idea!
Should kids learn to work hard? Yes! But what are the ways to get to that? We can talk further about other ways to get kids to work hard - but with no disrespect, I don’t see it so related to the idea of a once a year, highly politically motivated and administered test. And to the comment before - it is just way too oversimplified to blame teachers. They do way to much of the parents jobs, the administrators jobs, the political people’s jobs and so on…I could go on.
March 20th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I have a 2nd grade son who took the test for the first time this year. As you identified, Eve, his class spent weeks taking practice tests rather than working on the core curriculum, reading books about how to handle testing (”Taming the Testing Tiger”), learning yoga poses and breathing exercises, planning their post-DSTP party, and creating “Happy Place” posters filled with pictures of their favorite things. The purpose of these posters was to have something for the students to look at while they were taking the test, so if the child began to feel nervous or stressed, they could just look at their Happy Place poster to feel peace and calmness.
Prior to this DSTP preparation period, my son had no idea that he should experience any level of stress or nervousness taking a test. Now the school system has put it in his head that these are emotions he should feel. What they’ve done seems like a bit of brainwashing, plus they’re setting expectations for our children that when they do need to deal with a challenging situation, they should expect kid-glove treatment, immunity from doing any other work, and a party at the end. Maybe as adults we should consider have Happy Place posters in our offices. I wonder how my manager would react?