I've been tired since I got home from work and it is already creeping
up on midnight. This is going to be a long week.
Today there was testing all day. In the morning a third grade class
came in for their usual time and the one really slow girl started
working on the last stage of her Math state assessment. Last week it
was believed that she was done, but no. She ended up being in the
lab until sometime after noon. Over three hours of testing. Third
grade goes to lunch at noon so the teacher went and got the girl's
lunch and took it back to the room. And then came back to the lab so
I could clock out for lunch.
When I got back to the lab I had just sat down to eat when one of the
second grade classes came into the lab. I was utterly confused. And
the teacher was confused by my confusion, and probably the fact that
I was holding a peanut butter sandwich in my hand. She thought her
class was testing today, but they weren't, they test tomorrow. Thank
god. It did make me realize that the principal scheduled tests for
the rest of the week during my lunch time. There are also tests
first thing in the morning and classes in the lab in the afternoon.
So I'll either be eating lunch at ten o'clock in the morning, if
there aren't any testing stragglers, or at four o'clock in the
afternoon. It's going to be a great week.
This afternoon the same third grade class came back to the lab to
take their first MAP test. The slow girl was there until the end of
the day finishing her test. Another two and a half hours of testing.
She definitely didn't have any time in the classroom today to learn
things. We need to just be real with ourselves and stop this
pretense of school's being a place where we teach kids. School is a
place to test kids and then use their scores for political gain.
I set up the MAP test on a few iPads today and will eventually need
to do it on a bunch more before the upper grades start using them to
test. The test takes place in the Safari browser on the iPads and
apparently the browser menu options are still accessible, so they
have to be covered up in Guided Access. The whole process involves:
turning off the pop-up blocker for Safari so the test can actually
load, going to the testing website, creating a shortcut on the home
screen, dragging it to the dock, going back in, opening Guided
Access, drawing two boxes to cover up the top of the browser but
leave the Refresh button accessible, turning off the dictionary
feature in Safari, and then getting out of Guided Access. Full
classes start testing in two weeks so I've got some time and I'll
need it to set up over sixty iPads.
I wore a pair of my new jeans today and no one commented on them. It
was great. I don't want to be noticed or commented on. I find it
awkward and I was worried that it was going to happen today. I
almost didn't wear the new jeans. But I did and the world didn't
end.
After work I got a haircut and then went home. In the mail I got an
invitation to join Phi Kappa Phi, which is an academic honor society.
They're basically inviting me to give them money, but I guess there
are benefits to being a member. I was elected into Psi Chi, the
honor society for Psychology, as an undergrad and nothing ever came
of that, so I don't really see anything coming out of Phi Kappa Phi,
but who knows. There's an initiation ceremony that I don't think is
mandatory but would probably be a good thing to go to. The annoying
this is that it is the night before graduation. I could leave work
early, drive down there for the ceremony, drive back home for the
night, and then drive back in the morning for graduation. Or get a
hotel for the night, dropping another hundred bucks on a hotel room.
Or skip the ceremony and just go down in the morning for graduation.
I've got a little bit to figure it out.
I was invited to join because I am apparently in the top ten percent
of my class. That sounds pretty cool but then I remembered I've been
in groups with a lot of these people and it sounds less impressive.
I've had several good experiences with group work but I've also had a
couple doozies that made me lose my faith in humanity a little bit.
Tonight I read an article about marketing e-resources and looked into
stuff for my presentation proposal assignment. I have an idea for
what I want to do that is related to something I want to do for real
in my career, but I'm not sure if it will work for the assignment.
So I emailed my professor to check. I don't want to fully commit to
it and then get screwed on the grade because I missed the point. I
told her my idea and asked if I was in the right ballpark and if my
idea was too broad or narrow. Hopefully I am in the right ballpark
because I would prefer not having to think up another topic.
It is now half past midnight and I need to go to bed. Tomorrow is
going to probably suck with testing. Can't wait.
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