More Coffee, Please

The State of New Hampshire, for the first time, is now requiring juniors to participate in the NECAP assessment for science. Monadnock failed miserably with its last round of NECAP assessments, so this is a big deal.

I’ve talked before about how not to do a test, and Monadnock often does exactly what it ought not to. NECAP testing was conducted without the kids even knowing what the test was for, or what it was about—they just knew they were in a small room with a teacher they didn’t know, and answering tough questions for a reason they didn’t understand.

Just as badly, there was no push among the teachers with the idea this was important. Teachers weren’t asked to do any test prep, teachers weren’t asked to not assign homework—it was like any other day, except that kids were being asked to do something which would be reported in the local papers.

No wonder they didn’t do well.

I like to think lessons are being learned, and I’m thinking there’s proof:

Dear Faculty & Staff,
On Tuesday, May 20th from 7:30 – 11:15am (approximately) juniors will be taking the NECAP Science Assessment in the cafeteria, they should report directly to the cafeteria at 7:30, attendance will be taken there. A continental breakfast will be provided for all juniors from 7:30 – 8:00. At 8:15am the assessment will begin, the cafeteria will be closed to all traffic and all non junior students at 7:30. The test will consist of 3 Science sections and a 15 minute questionnaire session. The periods will run 1, 2, 3, 4, & 8th and then lunch periods will begin. Reminder to all teachers not to give juniors homework for Monday evening so they can focus on doing their best on Tuesday morning.

…snip…

Teachers:
PLEASE BE CERTAIN THAT YOUR CLASSES ARE AWARE OF THE ABOVE INFORMATION PRIOR TO TUESDAY MORNING. JUNIORS ARE ENCOURAGED TO BRING READING MATERIAL AS ELECTRONIC DEVICES OF ANY SORT ARE NOT ALLOWED AND THERE WILL BE QUIET TIME BETWEEN TEST SESSIONS.

So I’m trying to imagine how this is going to look—we’re going to have a host of kids who are going to be fed and told about everything ahead of time.¹ They’re going to be briefed and hopefully the importance of the test will be emphasized.

And did I mention they’re also going to be fed before hand?

That seems a bit better than shoving them into a room with no explanation. Granted, there are challenges here—it’s gonna be tough to make it clear that the breakfast is not a bribe, not a reward (the only reward a class should get is the satisfaction of a job well done—celebrations are wonderful and ought to be a normal part of the learning process, but let’s not turn our kids into dogs begging for treats) but that’s an easy challenge to overcome.

Now, the other half of this would be the guerilla warfare. I know when I do SAT prep, I start with the actual teaching of the material—how to read a tough text, to figure out the answers, to understand what is being said, to engage. I spend as much time as I can teaching the skills that will allow a kid to do well.

But at a certain point, I toss aside teaching content and start to teach how to score well. There’s a point where the student needs to be coached on how to take a test—to rate questions based on whether or not they have enough understanding to guess, to rate according to time, to see how to eliminate questions. It’s low, and it’s designed only to raise scores—but hey, sticking a kid into a room for three days for 45 minutes at a time is a pretty brutal thing to do. In war, I’m willing to cheat to win.

It might be something worth investing some time into. Until we get away from the idea that a test is a good way to measure understanding and school performance, we’re going to need to teach how to take tests—the most useless skill on the planet, with no relevance to life at all, but somehow still considered vital in school.

Thanks, Mr. President.

Now, the real trick is to change the whole culture of the school so that success is honored and the goal. One major problem with MRHS is the culture that comes from a “ghetto mentality”—this idea the kids carry that they’re not worth it, that “they’re from Monadnock” so it’s okay when they fail.

There are lot of factors involved in that—though one is definitely making them feel like the community values education—and not having the ceiling fall down is a good way to start.

1 And the value of students getting a solid breakfast has been understood for years. ↺

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Gregarious

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