Higher Level Thinking?

If you are a teacher, you will laugh.  If you are a parent, you may cringe. 

But if you are a kid, you are innocently oblivious.

I am not a fan of high stakes testing, nor am I a fan of testing every child according to their age level and some arbitrary benchmark level of “average”.   Some goony-goo-goo pencil-pusher/number cruncher who has either never been in a classroom or has been removed from the classroom since the 80’s is in charge of setting these benchmarks. 

I know that makes me feel better!  How ‘bout you?

How can children be compared to an average that does not take into account social and emotional development?  Did it ever occur to anyone that the reason I differentiate my instruction is because children are, in fact, NOT all the same.  Ok, so make me teach 18 different kids at least 5 different ways, but don’t assess them according to what they are working on. 

Makes sense, right?  (In case you were wondering, I am using sarcasm)

Well, let’s say that I am not at all impressed with the pencil-pusher/suit monkeys.  They love to pontificate, they do not seem to enjoy working out the logistics.  They want kids who have just learned how to decode 2 syllable words to use “higher-level thinking”.

I love my job.  I do.  Every day.  What drives me crazy is the impression that it is all so easy.  Easy for me and the kids.  Imagine that they were just born 8-9 years ago.  They learned to walk, talk and use the bathroom in that short time.  They learned the alphabet, words and sentences.  Now, they are learning to connect with text in a meaningful way.  That’s only a small part of literacy.  I haven’t even gone into numeracy!

Brings me back to the testing.  I administer this monster test every year and I am helpless.  These sweet little babies stare up at me and attempt to use ESP to get me to give me them the answers.  It can be heart breaking for a teacher.  You are paid to help.  Every bone in your body aches when they stare at the same problem for 5 plus minutes.  All you can do is say, “Don’t spend too much time on one problem.  Skip it and go back at the end.”  You smile, hand them sharpened pencils and fetch them tissues when you hear the muffled sniffle session. 

Terrible!  The most terrible part is when you know, with absolute certainty that a child is not going to do very well on a section.  That was putting it nicely.

During one of these sessions, I was walking around the room giving my “you can do it” smile.  I walked over to a little struggling sweetheart and glanced to make sure he was on the correct section. He was so nervous that he dropped his pencil.  No big deal. 

He leaned over, just about as far as he could without falling.  He pinched his pencil between his two fingers, braced himself on the table, gave a push to right himself and...

Let out the loudest, juiciest fart I have ever heard!  All with the biggest grin on his face!  Oh the joy!  The joy of teaching small innocent children with no shame!  I love them with all my heart!

I know that is gross.  I know it is inappropriate to laugh.  I am a grown-up.  But I will tell you that I was so tense about this particular test section that I NEEDED to hear that fart. 

I held in my laugh, no one else heard the “indiscretion”.  I did have to walk away and turn toward a wall.  I was red faced and crying from holding in my laughter. 

If only the pencil-pushers and monkey suits could’ve been there.  How’s that for higher-level thinking!?