My older daughter, Kt, is having some major anxiety over this standardized school testing. I don't really understand this one, because when I was a kid I love standardized test weeks. No school work, no homework, extended recess. What's not to love!!!????
This all started, though, a few WEEKS ago, when they started "practicing" to take this test. Now, as a teacher this raised a few red flags. We were never allowed to practice for standardized testing and that seems a little unfair to me that they can now. My daughter also seemed to have this idea that this test would affect all her school grades, that it would determine her report card grades, that all her practice tests would be graded.... I tried to figure out where she had gotten all this information because 1) I didn't want to overreact to all these things that I knew had to be false, and 2) Kt has a tendency to draw her own conclusions based on small, insignificant comments. I've learned that she has quite an imagination and that it often runs wild!
I have really tried to downplay this test for her. All weekend, she asked me several times a day if she could just stay home and skip this test. The big problem: they were going to take away their pencils and give them new ones! How tragic! I still haven't figured out if she was overreacting, and I sent her to school anyway. Yesterday, at her doctor's appointment, when he asked if they sleep well, I said, "Well, Kt has always sleeps well!" She replied with, "I didn't sleep at all last night because of my Terra Nova test!" What is up with this test???
I have resisted complaining, resisted asking other parents if their kids are just as freaked by the whole thing, instead resorting to prayer! Not such a bad thing. Kt and I have prayed that she would not be nervous, that her new pencil would work, that the test would be fun.... The good thing about this - I am pre-warned that the SAT's will be murder! (on our knees, anyway!)
This all started, though, a few WEEKS ago, when they started "practicing" to take this test. Now, as a teacher this raised a few red flags. We were never allowed to practice for standardized testing and that seems a little unfair to me that they can now. My daughter also seemed to have this idea that this test would affect all her school grades, that it would determine her report card grades, that all her practice tests would be graded.... I tried to figure out where she had gotten all this information because 1) I didn't want to overreact to all these things that I knew had to be false, and 2) Kt has a tendency to draw her own conclusions based on small, insignificant comments. I've learned that she has quite an imagination and that it often runs wild!
I have really tried to downplay this test for her. All weekend, she asked me several times a day if she could just stay home and skip this test. The big problem: they were going to take away their pencils and give them new ones! How tragic! I still haven't figured out if she was overreacting, and I sent her to school anyway. Yesterday, at her doctor's appointment, when he asked if they sleep well, I said, "Well, Kt has always sleeps well!" She replied with, "I didn't sleep at all last night because of my Terra Nova test!" What is up with this test???
I have resisted complaining, resisted asking other parents if their kids are just as freaked by the whole thing, instead resorting to prayer! Not such a bad thing. Kt and I have prayed that she would not be nervous, that her new pencil would work, that the test would be fun.... The good thing about this - I am pre-warned that the SAT's will be murder! (on our knees, anyway!)
1 comment:
So much is made of these 'tests' now that I am not surprised that children are freaking out over them.
...and if the test has to do with scoring the teacher well that just adds worry to scared.
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