In my off-hours from teaching, I vent through writing...
This I wrote after our staff meeting this afternoon where my principal made clear how much she disapproves of parents who opt their kids out of harmful testing, and where her interpretation of "un-timed tests" means the kids will actually sit longer than they did in previous years, and where she told us almost defiantly that any student who isn't taking the tests must be sent to "test refusal rooms" with a book and the test prep booklets that they will have to complete assignments in, (??!!) I wrote this:
“I know this is
true.”
Kids laugh and they curse. They read and they wrestle. They make mountains out of molehills. And rush in to help a fallen
friend.
And I know, too, this is true:
Kids are not
numbers
nor data
nor
countable, quantifiable things that can legitimize the millions upon billions
that you would so easily spend
To try to
convince us that kids are just numbers
and data
and
quantifiable things.
Learning is
messy and happy and noisy and unpredictable and twisty and turny
and did I say
messy?
Life, too,
is messy and happy and noisy and unpredictable and twisty and turny and don’t
forget messy.
And no one
is demanding to test what YOU do.
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