most people are acquainted with tax season...you know, when you submit your year's financial records in hopes of a refund from uncle sam. well, us teachers in texas have a tax season too...only, it's spelled TAKS (also pronounced "tax") for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test. this statewide testing begins in grade 3, the grade i teach. now some of you might be thinking, "great...a test to see what they know." i wish it were that simple. you see, this test comes with a do or die kind of catch. the kids MUST pass the reading section in order to be promoted to the 4th grade. it has also been revamped to aim at sophisticated/inferrential thinking rather than lower level recollection type thinking.
i was tutoring some of my at-risk students on friday. while tackling reading passages and discussing the thought process in order to come to the correct answer to comprehension questions, it became quite clear to me: some kids are just not mentally ready to handle this type of test yet. i think a large part of it is not only whether the kid can understand what they read, but their thinking process. if they are not able to "draw a line from a to b" in their minds when a and b are not concretely joined, they're gonna have trouble on the test. the whole maturity thing comes into play...some kids are just "not there yet" with their thinking. hopefully as the year progresses and with further learning, they'll get there by april (the 2nd attempt at the test if they didn't pass the first time) or in june (the 3rd and final chance to pass). my opinion is that it's only a matter of time before they'll require that for the math section too. so as you can imagine, this creates some pressure upon students and teachers.
the last 2 weeks have gotten really hectic, as "d-day" is tuesday, the 21st. with just about a week to go, i feel like we're at training camp, getting ready for the shuttle launch. recalling scenes from the movie armageddon (oooh, *loved* ben affleck)...yeah, i've got those kids in the water tank practicing special missions! =) until we get the scores in a month, i'll be *that* guy in mission control...you know, like billy bob... holding his breath waiting to see if everything goes off okay. i know what you're thinking, that's a mighty long breath. my fingers are crossed for the kiddos like you wouldn't believe.
