High-Stakes

I just thought I would share my input, that nobody asked for, about high-stakes testing.

Last week before spring break started I had a midterm in one of my classes. Test anxiety for me is a real thing, but since I have been an adult and more aware of time-management and my own shortcomings, it is not so bad. I prepare ahead of time, I study in chunks and I have been making it work. However, on Thursday night my test anxiety came rushing back and took over my whole body.

Our professor kindly let us use a sheet of notes on our midterm, he specified however that he wanted them to be handwritten and unique to each learner. Well, lets just say a table in the back didn't get the memo and they all had photocopied and laminated one sheet of notes. When confronted by our professor they became upset and mean. Our professor tried to keep his cool, but by this point the whole class was feeling uncomfortable as they lied and spoke aggressive towards him. He ended up revoking the entire classes privileges and said nobody got to use notes. 

My eye started twitching, my neck started turning red and itching and I was panicking. I was feel guilty and stressed for someone else actions, when the reality was I didn't even need my notes. Thankfully, my professor came back after a  few moments and apologized to the students who prepared honestly. He recognized that test anxiety is real and did what he could to change the environment back to a positive one. 

This is something that happened to me as a 28 year old adult, who studied for weeks over a topic I have been learning for years. I was paralyzed with test anxiety and fear in a very low-stakes setting. It made me flashback to being in 5th grade on September 11. I sat up for hours every night with my dad crying, asking him questions and wondering if Houston would be targeted next. When we finally went back to school I remember it was all anybody talked about for months, because we were all scared that anything could happen at any minute.

Standardized test are hard for students on a normal day in a normal year. This year has been anything but normal. The stakes for our students are so high, and in a global pandemic when they are sitting at home watching the news fearing for their lives, how can they focus on writing prompts and which answer is the most right. Even if they are able to go back to school in the coming weeks their focus will be on what everyone did during quarantine, who is still scared and not on school. They are processing some major news, it is unknown to the adults who are their sounding boards, so they don't even have a reference on how to proceed. 

When I woke up this morning and I saw that Texas had waived the requirements for STAAR testing I felt relived. I am not a teacher yet, my daughter is not even 2, but I am an advocate for children always. Our children need our love, support and security right now as we all navigate these uncharted waters. Life in general is high-stakes right now, thank you Texas for not adding pressure to our students. 

I feel thankful for all of the teachers who are working hard to provide online educational content for their students. I feel extremely grateful for my professors who are changing the entire structure of our classes to get us through this semester. I think it is crucial that our students continue their education at home or at school, but I am thankful that our state took the pressure off!

I hope that our students are able to return to school soon and back to a place of normalcy, but for now all that matters is they are safe and loved.