Post Testing Ponderings 2016

The test is over and done!  I am feeling so much more relaxed now that my 4th graders have taken the fourth grade writing test. What are my ah-hahs right now? (I am going to write them down now, and I will mostly come back in the few days and revise.)

• Some students will show their work.
• Others, no matter what you have shown them and what they have continually done in the past, get test amnesia and forget everything. (I forgot about that one.)
• Water bottles can be used as musical instruments. The lids can be used as little figurines representing may things to many students. The bottle and lid become the characters in Minecraft or some other video game. 
• Pencils lead breaks easily. It is wise to have many pencils sharpened prior to testing. I always sharpen an extra 20 or so. I used the pencils that were given to me, but I also used a few of my own by the end of the day. (Always invest in a good pencil sharpener. The nice one that we have in our planning room used to work efficiently. Now, not so much.)
• When you put a test in front a some students, it serves as a sleep inducing agent.  It also has many bladder effects too. With in 30 minutes students need to go to sleep or the restroom. The restroom reference is interesting because I took them to the restroom before the test started 30 minutes prior. Hmmm!
• When some students take the test, they procrastinate and procrastinate and procrastinate. They look around, fiddle with their pencil, play with eraser extracts, look around, flip the pages, look around, play with pencil lead, and bring the eraser extracts together to form an imaginary Texas A and M bonfire. Some find it necessary to go the restroom after spending time drinking bottled water and eating string cheese. Oh, I forgot a new procrastination method: peeling and eating string cheese. This could take a full twenty minutes.
• Recording pee pee breaks is a new duty of proctoring teachers. It is about as fun as watching the grass grow. 
• Testing is testing. You have your highs and lows. The last hour is takes forever! You have 60 minutes, 45 minutes, 30 minutes, 15 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes, and 1 minute left.
• Watching children test is an extremely stressful endeavour. It seems as if it would be easy. It is nerve racking and painful. I would rather get a root canal, have ACL surgery, or be stuck in Houston traffic on 290 at 4:30 on a Friday.

Having written all of this, I can't wait to do this again in 2017! (Not really.)