Testing, Testing

A friend just told me that a new rule for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, a.k.a. the TAKS test, or the bane of Texas teachers' existence, stipulates that administrators of the standardized test (that would be the overworked teachers of our great state) must stand for the duration of the exam.

Quoi? C'est possible?

What idiot came up with that one?

Another question that creeps into my brain is What if my friend's principal made up that rule?

Hey, stranger things have happened.

When I was teaching (I resigned after last school year), I anticipated the TAKS with both dread and relief. The advent of the TAKS test (at least at my campus) meant that:

1) We could dress in jeans and "spirit" shirts on testing days.
2) We didn't have to prepare lessons for at least our morning classes on testing days.
3) Students would be mostly quiet for a few hours, with the exception of the snores emitting from the students who had completed the test and were grabbing some shut-eye.
4) The spring semester had arrived, so we could just barely make out the light at the end of the tunnel, which is the last day of school.

However...we were allowed to sit down. But, we weren't supposed to work on our computer. And I think that really doing anything that took attention away from staring at the heads of the students as they worked through the test was discouraged.

But we were allowed to sit down.

What is the world coming to if teachers are not permitted to sit down during TAKS testing? So, let me get this straight...does this rule imply that teachers are not working if they are sitting down? Let's apply this rule to other situations....

Are receptionists inefficient if they sit?

Should dentists stand while they examine their patients' teeth?

What about judges who sit while hearing lawyers' arguments? Isn't it well known that judges think better on their feet?

What about accountants? Wouldn't you prefer to have your CPA do your taxes while standing after being on his or her feet for several hours?

What about bus drivers? Hey, man, you better not sit down. Texas thinks that people can do their jobs better while standing.

Okay, enough of that nonsense.

But I've got another thought....What about a teacher who uses a wheelchair? Would he or she be stripped of his or her teacher's license for violating the rules of administering the TAKS?

When I was teaching, I stood for most of the day. I was a very interactive teacher, as was the nature of my subject area. But I was never required to stand.

Something is rotten in the state of Texas.

Bathrobe Prison

How is it that our miniature dachshund manages to create the most alarming situations in the middle of the night?

Here's the latest one....

On the night of February 13, I climbed into bed and read a while, as is my almost-nightly custom. The weather is still a bit chilly in the evenings, so I kept my terrycloth robe on while I read about lofty things like being an artist and how that relates to God. (See Madeleine L'Engle's book Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art for more on that topic. My highlighter is running out of ink from all the passages I've marked in hot pink.) After my eyelids began to droop, I returned the book to the tower of assorted publications on my night table and lay my head on my pillow.

Any lofty concepts or beautiful dreams landed with a thud a couple of hours later. I'm not sure if I awoke to the rustling near me, or if it was my husband's declaration about our Rusty: "He's stuck in your robe!"

Sure enough, there he was, stuck in the sleeve of my bathrobe. A stuffed weiner. A terrycloth-covered tube. He was one trapped dog.

What do you do to get a 15-pound muscly and scared dachshund out of the sleeve of a bathrobe? I picked him up, grabbed the edges of the fabric, and shook it gently and rhythmically to see if I could dislodge him at all. His body slid down a little, which I took as a good sign. But then there was that long snout. He kept putting his head down as he wriggled franticly. I tried snapping my fingers above his head in an effort to divert his attention and cause him to raise his head with his nose pointed up. No dice.

Sometimes you've just gotta use scissors.

Fiskars shears finally released him from his accidental prison. The newly-released prisoner ran to the back door to be let outside and then kept his leg hiked for quite a length of time. Guess that predicament really scared him.

We joked later about how Rusty just wanted to give us a stuffed animal for Valentine's Day. I know--that's horrible. If my husband hadn't woken up and realized the situation, it could have ended quite differently. But in such situations, you've got to keep your sense of humor. And then never leave a bathrobe near a dog unattended again.