To My Students: You Are More

Tomorrow my ~120 freshmen students will shuffle to their assigned classrooms (hopefully on time, and really hopefully with a pencil) to sit down for five hours and take the English 1 STAAR (State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness) exam. And that makes me a little bit sick to my stomach.

First year tackling the STAAR

Not because it’s a reflection on me, and the work I have done with them in the classroom for the past seven months (though it definitely is those things), but because in a couple of months, my students will be given a score: PASS or FAIL. And many of my students will attach their worth to that score. It will supposedly confirm what they have been told about themselves as students for years: that they aren’t capable. That they aren’t smart. That they shouldn’t even bother trying in their classes because, what’s the point? They aren’t going to pass anyway. This STAAR test has told them so.

And it sounds silly, but unfortunately, it’s true. At the beginning of February, every single student in the freshman class sat for a Mock STAAR exam. And I’m so grateful that we are allowed to give that exam each year, as it allows our students to actually experience what it’s like to sit through a test of this length. It is a test of endurance, and some of them realize they lack the focus to hang on for that long. So, it’s good for them to experience it before they sit for the real thing. But getting back to my point, we gave them this mock exam, and many of my students were disappointed in how they performed. I was a little bit disappointed in how they performed, if I’m being completely honest. Some of my very top students were scoring in the 70’s range, and while that’s not necessarily bad, it was far lower than what I believed them capable.

Until my PLC sat down and analyzed the results. And the questions. And we ended up throwing out FIVE of them because even we couldn’t determine or agree on why the right answer was the right answer. FIVE questions. Out of fifty. And as we continued to look at each question, we found faults with others. Maybe the question was worded poorly, or there wasn’t really a best answer. Or the lexile level of some of the stories given was FAR above a 9^th grade reading level. And it further reiterated how totally bogus I think this test is.

A Friday text from a fellow STAAR-testing teacher

This test – designed to see if high school freshmen are on a 9^th grade level for reading and writing – is longer in length than the SAT. And during the SAT, there are scheduled breaks! If my students need to use the restroom, it comes out of their testing time.

I wrote my own essay - that box makes it tough!

I’ve hit on this test before, most recently in my post following the seemingly last-minute announcement of the removal of the Short Answer Response questions from the test. And as I have mentioned before, I do not hate the idea of a timed, sit-down, multiple choice and written exam. Because the reality is, no matter what path my students take following high school, each one of them will be facing some sort of entrance exam. It is important that they have experience in this type of environment. What bothers me is that this test drives so much of what we do in the classroom, when there are so many other, cooler, more relevant things we could be doing. The fact that these students are still taking the same exact type of test that I took when I was in high school is a huge problem. Because the world these kids live in today is so incredibly different than it was when I was in high school. And that was only seven years ago!

Their progress with technology has been off the charts

This test, when it comes down to it, gets my students a score dependent on how they perform in one set five-hour period. On a set date. No matter how they’re feeling. No matter what they went home to last night. No matter what fight they got into with their boyfriend or girlfriend during lunch yesterday. As silly as it may have been. No matter what’s on their minds. And while there’s something to be said about being able to put things on hold to focus on the task in front of you, we also have to remember that these kiddos are 14 and 15 years old.

Boston Bound

This quote comes from a book ultimately written about running. This book is a fantastic read, and while it talks about this particular runners’ experience in trying to qualify for the prestigious Boston Marathon, at this book’s core, it’s meant to be applicable to all aspects of life. And it is. And while gaining entry to the Boston Marathon takes months and months of disciplined, focused training, the training isn’t taken into account when applying for entry into the prestigious Boston race. Participation on Marathon Monday takes the months and months of preparation PLUS everything else working in your favor – weather, staying injury-free, good nutrition and hydration, and so on. Sure, you put in the hard work, but if one thing goes wrong on test day, that’s it. It doesn’t take away from the hard work you put in, of course, but ultimately, the results are the only thing that matters.

I sure hope that's what we're doing!

And to miss what you were working so hard for, trust me, I know, feels like it erases all of that hard work. And for many of my students, a missed performance on that set day can seemingly erase what so many of them have worked so hard for. And that kills me. Because this test measures how you perform on one day. But what this test doesn’t measure is the real problem.

Touche

To my students – You have put in months and months of hard work. Seven of them, in fact. And we will continue to work after you take the STAAR test, despite your inevitable pleas to just watch movies, because we’re done with the STAAR test and that’s all that matters. Except that it doesn’t. Okay, it does matter. But your scores on the STAAR test is not my main focus anymore. The score you guys receive on this test does not reflect the growth you have made from day one to day 133. It doesn’t reflect the digital portfolios that you guys have started. It doesn’t reflect your willingness to go along with my attempts to meet you where you’re at in terms of technology. It doesn’t reflect the discussions we have had over real world issues facing you guys and your families today. It doesn’t reflect the way you have learned to respectfully disagree with your classmates, while still holding onto your beliefs. It doesn’t reflect the way some of you have hung onto the words of the book I’m reading aloud to you, some of you for the first time in your lives. It doesn’t reflect the laughs we’ve shared in class, the cool tidbits I’ve learned about each one of you, and this test certainly doesn’t determine your worth as a student or a human being. You groan when you walk into my room and see that lined paper waiting to be picked up, and quite frankly, I don’t blame you. Because it’s one less day that we get to tackle something more important than a 26-line essay. It’s one less day that we get to feed off of one another’s thoughts and questions and have stimulating discussions. It’s one less day that we can explore all that this World Wide Web has to offer you guys. And no matter what this test holds for you tomorrow, know that you are so much more than this test. You have a teacher who could not be more proud of the work you have put in this year, and despite the fact that she doesn’t really believe in the validity of this particular test, she has all the confidence in the world in each one of you.

I don’t have the answer as to what should be used to measure whether our students are 9^th, 10^th, 11^th, or 12^th grade ready. Because I recognize that we have to have something. But perhaps that something looks different from the way it looks right now. Perhaps it focuses more on growth rather than on a score. Perhaps it focuses more on what ignites each students’ passion, rather than on a cheesy prompt asking them to define friendship.

Tomorrow, as I count my steps walking up and down the rows of students, actively monitoring, if you will, I hope that each one of my students knows that this test does not define them. That they have done work this year that has blown my expectations out of the water. And that no matter their score on this silly standardized test, I will always be proud of them. 

Changes Made

In my head, this was a short snipped for a “Things I’m Loving Friday” post, but then I started writing, and I realized that I just have far too much to say. I’m not sure why I feel so compelled to write this, except for the fact that, as an educator, and as someone who works with high school students on a daily basis, I really can’t keep quiet about these standardized tests that we are forced to administer each year.

Let me start out by saying that this post is mainly for my educator friends. So, some of you may want to stop reading right here. But for those of you who are interested in the thoughts of a relatively new teacher, read on.

There is so much that I love about teaching, but if there's one thing that kills my soul, it's teaching the STAAR. For those of you not familiar with the Texas public school system, the STAAR is a curriculum-based standardized test that every student, beginning in the third grade, takes in order to “advance to the next grade” or to be eligible to graduate high school. There are STAAR tests for math, reading, writing, science, and history, depending on the students’ grade. And before I go off about the absurdity of these standardized tests, let me state that I understand the need for them, and I also recognize that many professions require you to take and pass some sort of exam, so it's pretty important that our students are exposed to a test-taking environment. I had to take two tests to become teacher certified. If I decide to go to grad school, which I would one day like to do, I'm looking the GRE square in the face. My medical school friends studied for the beast of the MCAT, and have also taken some pretty grueling exams over the past couple of years. My friend in law school is about to sit for the BAR exam in a couple of months, and another one of my friends sat through this seven-hour CFA exam in which they weren’t even allowed to have water in the testing room. I get it. These tests are a thing. And teachers and students both need to be held accountable. Otherwise, who knows what might go down in the classroom. There have to be standards, and I have no problem with that.

Do I think it makes sense that the English 1 STAAR test, taken by 14-and-15-year-old high school freshmen, is longer than the SAT or ACT? No. Do I think these kids are over tested? Yes. Do I think the STAAR is necessarily the best way to see that our students have mastered the English 1 curriculum? Not really. In a perfect world, students could showcase something that they’re proud of. Something that they’ve been working on that combines their talents and interests with reading comprehension and writing skills. I’m not much older than many of the students that I teach, but it’s a completely different world from when I was in high school. These kids are true 21^st century students, and we’ve got to cater to that. If my students could turn in some of the things they’ve produced – their Adobe Spark This I Believe Essays, or their Hero Research Projects, for example, I think these TEA people would be more than impressed. My students have some really incredible skills, and I don’t think they’re properly measured by a 26-line expository essay and multiple choice questions over some pretty inaccessible passages.

Anyway, the reason I’m going on this rant is because we received word yesterday morning, as my students were busy writing a short answer response, that there will be no short answer responses on this year's STAAR test. I told my kids to recycle the lined boxes I had just handed each one of them, as they will no longer be needed.

My first thought when I saw the email about the fact that the short answer responses have been taken off the test? Pure elation. For pretty selfish reasons, at first. See, I really don't like the short answer responses. I struggled with them when I was in high school, I don't feel as though I teach them very well, and I loathe grading them. Give me a stack of essays to grade any day of the week. My second thought was that, hey, it's January. This test should already be written, printed, and locked in a warehouse somewhere, right? My second-and-a-half thought was that, okay, it's JANUARY. This would have been nice to know in, say, August, when we were mapping out the year. We have already written quite a few short answer responses, and as I mentioned above, my students were in the process of writing one when I checked my email. Is all of that just time wasted? And honestly, I really don’t think it is. I absolutely believe that the skill of reading an article or passage or story or poem and being able to think critically about it, back up that thought with textual evidence and then analyzing or explaining it is an extremely valuable skill to have. In my opinion, that shows true understanding of a text. My problem is not with what the short answer response is asking us to do. My problem with these short answer responses is that our students were limited to a TEN-LINE box in which to complete this analysis. And if they write outside the box, forget it. The graders won’t even see it. I told my students this when I was first introducing the concept, and one students raises his hand and says, “But aren’t we always told to think outside the box?” Touché. And I don’t find ten lines to be enough room to truly think outside the box. Especially when the titles of the stories alone take up an entire line.

It’s the fact that we were asking our students to make these deep connections, but you better write small if you want your brilliant thoughts to fit inside the box. It’s the fact that if our students took a risk by not giving the “cookie cutter” answer the graders are looking for, they risk receiving a poor score.

And I understand that it’s a matter of time and money. If I let some of my kids have all the paper their hearts desired, they would write pages and pages and pages. The graders don’t have time for that. And they probably don’t want to sit through hours of recorded video about what these kids believe in. Or who these students look up to and why. They should take the time to do these things, but I get it. There’s not enough money to pay people to read and grade more than they already do. And I don’t have a solution to this, but what if the way our kids were evaluated and deemed “ready” changed?

My first year of teaching, I was absolutely terrified to open the email that said we had received that year’s STAAR scores. I knew how hard I had worked that year, and I knew how hard (most of) my students had worked, but as that was my first year, I figured this document was going to tell me how good of a job I had really done. The last thing I wanted was to feel as though I had failed my kids by not teaching them the skills they supposedly needed, and I really didn’t need to feel as though I was a worse teacher than I already thought. Though no one ever said these words to me, I felt as though my job was riding on how my kids did on this test. And that’s a horrible feeling. Because I see growth in so many of my students that may or may not shine through on this one five-hour test.

These tests are a bummer. They place so much emphasis on how a child performs on one test, on one morning (and afternoon because we’re talking about five hours, here) of the school year. It doesn't take into consideration the fact that the student may not feel well. It doesn't take into consideration that a students’ parents had a huge argument the night before, and he or she is carrying that into the test. It doesn't take into consideration a lot of factors that really could affect a child's ability to do his or her best. And the reality is, that could happen on any number of important days. But to put that much pressure on a high school freshman?

I don’t know how many of you have seen this article floating around the Interwebs – if you’re friends with any teachers on Facebook, my guess is that at least one of them probably shared it – but it hits the nail on the head. This author had two of her poems appear on the 7^th and 8^th grade STAAR test, and she couldn’t answer some of the questions about her OWN poems. No one consulted her when it came time to write the test questions. No one asked her why she wrote it. And we won't even talk about the fact that it wasn't what I would call the most uplifting poem (the author says so, too!) But hey, this is just the most important test you'll take, but do you really need any extra encouragement?

There are some really cool materials and applications out there, but sometimes I feel as though I have to pass them by, or say, “Maybe after the STAAR I can experiment with that,” because I feel as though I’ve got to get my kids ready to take this test. And we try and make it as fun and engaging as possible. But come on. Above all, I want my students to love learning. I want them to be curious, and I don’t want them to see reading and writing as something boring, or something that is only done while sitting at a desk. I don't want them to ever not know the joy of reading something that you want to read. I don't want them to see writing as a formula. But I can see it in my students’ faces when I hand out yet another multiple choice practice packet, or when they sit down to write yet another 26-line expository essay. And you better not think write outside the box.

Let's Dance

The title of today's post has a double meaning, but we'll get to that in a minute. First of all, happy Monday! I hope your day has been ... more productive than mine. 

First of all, as of 1:30pm today, I am F-R-E-E from the STAAR. For the rest of this year, anyway. I can't tell you how much relief I feel right now. My shoulders have relaxed, and it's out of my hands now, as silly as that sounds. And while I'm not so sure I believed my students when they told me "it was so easy," I had a huge smile on my face when some of them walked in, high-fived me, and assured me that they passed. Sitting through a five-hour reading and writing test is no easy feat, and I am so incredibly proud of them. The rest of the day was utter chaos, but I didn't even have it in me to settle them down. Hey, they deserve it! And I'm proud of myself for actively monitoring like a champ. The way Bellaire does their scheduling is pretty great, as we monitor in shifts, but those three hours that I was monitoring were brutal. I walked up and down and back and forth and literally read through this entire handbook cover to cover, because I just needed something to do.

I'm monitoring again on Wednesday for the English II STAAR, but something tells me I'm not going to be having any monitoring nightmares before this one, like I did the other night. I dreamt that I had my 7th period all in one classroom (say it ain't so), and that I had to void three tests due to one student being in possession of a cell phone, and two others sharing answers. I'm very glad that I didn't have any of my students in the room that I monitored, as I am sure I would have been hovering over said student's shoulder the entire time. Just kidding, but it was best that I was not in any of their classrooms.

So, here's to two months of a little bit of fun - persuasive techniques and Romeo and Juliet, and NOT writing expository essays and short answer responses for a while. I'll raise my glass to that!

March Madness

I went to bed on Friday night having six teams out of eight left in my bracket. I could have had three of the final four. But both Notre Dame and Arizona lost on Saturday, leaving me with Duke as my saving grace. I will admit that I was feeling nervous for the Duke-Gonzaga game, because while you can never count out Duke, they've also been known to fall apart at the worst moments. Though, I've said from the beginning that they would either lose in round two, or they'd bring home another championship under Coach K. And I'm holding onto the latter part of that statement.

(Source)

Because the Duke Blue Devils are going back to the Final Four for the 16th time, and what's better is that this young team is led by Houston native, Justice Winslow. And while I would have loved to be at the game, as it took place in my own backyard, I had just as much fun watching it from the comfort of my own home. Because when things started getting close, I left to go run a quick school errand, and then came home to find that they had regained the lead. And while I was more than happy to see Michigan State make the Final Four, these Spartans are going down on Saturday night.

(Source)

Have a great rest of your Monday - I know I will!

Bootcamp

We have made it over the hump! Hallelujah! Just seven more school days to spring break, though I can't get too excited about that one, yet. It is officially crunch time, and my to-do list seems to be getting longer and longer each day. We have just 12 (!!!) school days until STAAR, and I tried to instill some fear in my kiddos by writing this on the board - today was 13 - but I think I only instilled fear in myself.

Going over the calendar made it all very, very real. That ready or not (and trust me, some of my students are certainly not ready), the STAAR test is coming. I'm going to offer a STAAR Bootcamp these next two weeks during lunch tutorials, in the hopes that some of my students will soak up some extra test-taking strategies. If nothing else, my hope is that they will become more comfortable with the format of the test, because it is no easy feat. While STAAR is looking more and more like TAKS every day, I more than remember being exhausted after sitting in a room for five hours just reading and writing and reading and writing. And then when you finish you get to read some more! I say this like I didn't love TAKS week, but now that I'm on the other side of it, I'm realizing just how silly it all really is.

But I won't even get into that right now. Let's talk exercise! Because I'm still not running (ugh, it's killing me), I decided to stay after school and attend a 4:30pm bootcamp class at the 24 Hour Fitness right by school. I have attended this bootcamp before, but it has certainly been a while, as evidenced by one attendee who said, "I don't recognize you. You must be new." Hey, I think I held my own! That being said, today's workout was tough. I was absolutely drenched in sweat by the time the clock hit 5:30pm, and again, I don't want to compromise the instructor and his class by sharing what the entire class looked like, but I'll share a couple of my favorite exercises with you guys.

We started out the class with some jump rope - 1 minute, 2 minutes, and 2 minutes. That got my heartrate up quick! We then did four rounds of a circuit that included six different exercises. We only did 10 reps of each exercise, but that was enough. Trust me. I thought when I graduated from high school (and volleyball), I had graduated from burpees. Nope. They follow me everywhere I go. But these burpees looked a little bit different. They go by the name of Lateral Burpees, in which a bar was placed on the ground, jumped over twice laterally, and then completed a burpee. I think this move is very crossfit-esque, but whew, it got me good. And you could easily make it harder by building a higher step, but honestly, it's hard enough as is.

(Source)

And I was surprised by how difficult this exercise was for me. I consider myself to have a fairly strong core, but I will admit that I have neglected targeted core work in favor of running, running, running. So these also got me good. The only piece of equipment needed? Two pieces of felt. I got in push-up position, with one piece of felt under each shoe. I completed two mountain climbers before getting down in plank position (on my elbows) and brought my knees to my chest (at the same time), twice. I then reverted back to push-up position and completed that sequence ten times. Okay, I took a couple of breaks. But don't knock it 'til you try it because it's much harder than it sounds.

It looked like this, though we were on our elbows (Source)

After bootcamp I headed back over to school, because sitting in 5:30pm Houston traffic is one thing that is not on my to-do list. I blasted some music, spread out my papers, and made myself comfortable as I cranked out grades and comments for the expository essays my kids wrote on Tuesday. It was my goal to get them finished as soon as possible, so that I can get them back to my kids and actually talk about them and see what last-minute improvements they can make to help make that jump from the 1/2 range to the 3/4 range. My cart is overflowing, my folders are stuffed to the brim, and I am counting down the days until I can chunk all things expository- and short answer-related.

And normally I don't use an actual red pen

But until that day comes, I will probably be seeing some later hours of the night, my kids will probably be seeing more of the Kelli bun, and some of them will likely be seeing more of their principal's office. Though today a student asked me, "Do you really think the threat of going to my principal is going to make me behave?" Excuse me? If a teacher ever even uttered the words "principal's office" to me (spoiler alert: this never happened), I would have started crying in the middle of class. I would have apologized profusely, and I probably would have brought him or her Starbucks every day for the rest of my life. My oh my, how times have changed!

I hope your Wednesday has been just wonderful. Stay warm, because this arctic freeze is coming!