Post Time

We have state testing next week. Usually, I’m not too nervous about this kind of stuff, though maybe I should be since districts are starting to use the results as part of teacher evaluations. Are you telling me students wouldn’t tank a test to get rid of a teacher they hated because he never showed movies in class and made kids read instead? Tell that to the kid who started a gay rumor about me because I didn’t give bonus points on quizzes. What do they have to risk? If a student doesn’t pass the exit exam in their junior year, then they can take it their senior year.

Honestly, such a scenario doesn’t worry me. In this job, some things you just have to be fearless about. With that said, I am very nervous about one thing in particular. Our machine that prints the posters just broke. This is the machine we use to list the testing room assignments for students. Now we have to result to giving them their room assignments today and hope that they remember it for Monday because the machine will not be fixed in time and no Plan B is in place for posting the names.

This has “disaster” written all over it. Have you ever asked a teen to remember something over the weekend? If you don’t know what that’s like then just think back to when you use to play that game telephone with a bunch of friends. Remember? After whispering the message, “Cats are fluffy,” as fast as you could from kid to kid it would get garbled into something like, “Maps are puffy.” Well, that’s how things get translated with a single teenager.

I’m talking about just one teen and not a bunch of elementary school children. Watch. I’m going to tell a student, “Report to Room 430 and remember that you can’t use your own calculator. One will be provided to you,” and she’ll hear, “Repair broom for birdies and remember you count your bone exterminator. Some will be divided to you.”