TAKS.....the only four letter word allowed in school!

 I can tell you that amongst the middle school set the acronym stands for:


Torturing
All
Kids 
Severely   

                          (No, this is not torture but it's the closest thing I could find.)

 


It shouldn't and doesn't have to be that way. I certainly have not created the idea that teaching test taking strategies and skills can be tolerable and even fun. Learning testing skills can be fun.
It's like Mary Poppins and the spoonful of sugar. There is not one child I've ever taught that would have been on their knees begging,"Oh please, Mrs.G., just one more lesson about inferencing...please?"  But, you let them think they're in on some big conspiracy, like maybe there's this person, who happens to live in the basement in downtown Austin where they create the TAKS tests (that came from a child, not me) and whose sole goal in life is to trip kids up by making one answer choice that is pretty close but not exactly right. And, this person thinks we don't have the skills we need. What's that you say? Oh, you know all about the most logical wrong answer? You know how to cross out and circle your proof and check your topic sentences?  Well, I guess this class is just too smart to fall for those tricks, huh? 

One year I had a student named K. She was very competitive and her inner warrior could not stand the thought that anyone could possibly think she'd fall for their sneakiness. Well, she didn't. In fact, when the scores came back, she'd earned a perfect score on both reading and math. I knew she was very smart but she'd also taken the longest to take both sections, much longer than even with regular class work. She was pretty confident though when she'd finished and she let me know she'd written plenty of notes to the person in the basement. Here's an example of what she said she wrote," I can't believe you thought I'd fall for that one!"  I do bring K up, (even when I had her little brother ) though not by even first name, to my students as someone who wanted to do their very best and so she took plenty of time to be careful. 

I have found that when you create word problems or grammar exercises with your students' names and things that are popular, it is connectedness that pays off. Again, like any good teacher, I'm not the first to think this up and have no hesitation whatsoever of  "stealing" someone else's idea or sharing my own. We are that village raising these children.