This week at school we have been administering the state mandated tests. Since I am originally from a Northern state, it seems weird to put so much emphasis on a test. I am all for standards and holding students and teachers to those standards. However, our school suffers because a majority of the students are ESL (English as a Second Language.) In our case, the test is not about bragging rights. It is about keeping the school open.
On Monday, the school went to the test's pep rally. The kids really enjoyed it. I don't think the rally improves scores, but takes the pressure off the kids for a bit. They played games and screamed alot. A focus of the rally was balloons. That was great until the condoms came out.
My 9th graders have been learning about Romeo and Juliet for about 7 weeks now. What a rite of passage for all freshmen! Especially in the spring when all you see in the halls are couples holding hands and making googily eyes at each other! For the past two weeks, they have been planning to act out a whole scene of the play. For the most part, the project worked. Only three hiccups. One class self destructed and did not get their scene done. Second hiccup, I cannot get the camcorder video transferred to anything to let the students watch themselves.
The third hiccup was that Romeo and Juliet is a very loud play. And the state mandated test was going on next door. One Romeo was so loud in his crying over his Juliet, the proctor came over because she thought I hurt a student. I thought this would be a good stress reliever before their Math state mandated test, but next year I think I will schedule differently.
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