Testing, One, Two, Testing

It’s testing time and testing will never change--the teachers are diligent with their “Testing In Progress” signs on the door and stern directives to put pencils down and the students send up a collective groan at the process. As I watched the seventh graders reluctantly shuffle to their multiple-choice doom, I was having flashbacks to the innumerable hours I have spent taking (read: surviving the mind-numbing boredom of) standardized tests. One of my least favorite aspects of these tests is the section where you are asked to choose the “best” title for a passage. I remember balking at this while still a grade-schooler. Even at that young age I was keenly aware of the power of interpretation and tried to convince a teacher or two that the question was inherently unfair and biased. Then, and frequently now, I kept getting the sinking feeling that bureaucracy was king and inertia its queen. It’s just a semantic issue, but an important one. If they asked for the “most accurate” or “most descriptive” title, I could live with that. But they always make you choose the “best” title, and it is too subjective for me. So, with this whole carousel of baggage, I read Sandra Boynton’s Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs to Scarlett. The book presents non-controversial dino opposites like “dinosaurs happy and dinosaurs sad” but gets into iffy territory with “dinosaurs cute and dinosaurs not.” I think “best” title and “cute” dinosaur are recklessly relative-- and I just won’t do it.

http://www.sandraboynton.com/sboynton/index.html

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