I have been thinking about the blog this past week---trying to decide what tone it should take, how often it should be updated, what content should be included, and how much personal information to disclose on it. I am afraid I have not come to many conclusions. ;-) I hope to update it a minimum of once a week, but I am aiming for more.
In my spare time, I have been perusing my favorite blogs in hopes of it helping some of my own ideas cement (BTW, check out the sidebar for the links to some great blogs). So until then, I guess you will have to deal with the rambling, sometimes fractured nature of my writing. ;-)
The other reason I have not posted much this week was that this past week was crazy. And when I say crazy, I mean it sucked big time.
Part of the reason it was a bad week (the other reason is another post all together) was that I started a second, part-time (seasonal) job somewhat unprepared. I work in the lab from 8AM-5PM and then work at the second job from 6PM-10PM---and for some reason, last weekend I didn’t get the domestic things done that would have smoothed this past week out some—ya know, like doing the laundry so I didn’t have to run around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to find a clean shirt in the morning, making meals in advance so I wouldn’t be forced to grab crappy take-out for dinner on my way to job #2, etc..
And I know 60 hours is a lot but I worked considerably more as a grad student and then as a post-doc. In those[sarcasm] good ole days [/sarcasm] , I would work 80 hours per week and sometimes more. But I had forgotten (and rather quickly at that) how nothing domestic ever got accomplished during that time [Translation: the apartment would look like a tornado hit it, green stuff would be growing on the dishes in the sink, the answering machine would be full of messages from friends and family wondering where the heck I was and if they needed to call the police, etc.]
Anyway, the second job has nothing to do with chemistry, will run until June and will help contribute several hundred dollars a month to the savings account. Also, I am meeting new people (not chemistry geeks!) and learning new skills which are nice bonuses.
So what am I doing in this second job? I am scoring the standardized exams that kids in K-12 have to take. I am 32 years old, but I still vividly remember those exams from grade school.
They were long, hard, and grade level specific (meaning third graders all took the same test, fourth graders all took the same test but different from the third grader test, etc.). They had subject-based sections: math, English grammar, science, reading comprehension, etc. They were completely multiple choice. The only pictures on the exam were usually in the math section to help one determine the parameter of a yard or the circumference of a circle.
Fast forward to today’s exams. About the only thing that hasn’t changed is the little red stops they place on the exam to indicate one has reached the end of a section (Is it weird that I got little warm fuzzies from seeing the stop signs again?)
There are five types of exams: K, 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. Each type of exam has three levels: A, B, C.
Initially, I thought that the A, B, C exams were all the same level but the questions were slightly different to prevent cheating. Uh no. The complexity increases with each level so they are three different exams entirely. And do you know who decides which level of exam your child takes? His/her teacher. I may be alone in this, but I find that a little disturbing. What if the child is given too easy/hard of a test? The implications for your child advancing or the track they might be placed on as a result are scary.
Gone are the subject sections from the exams. Questions from various subjects are mingled together. The only sections that exist are hearing comprehension and reading comprehension.
Also, gone are the text-only multiple choice questions. Usually, there is a picture on the page and two or three multiple choice questions below that refer back to it. Essay questions are now standard—which I applaud. I graduated high school with too many people barely able to sign their own name.
Unfortunately, the questions seem to be dumbed down. For instance, on the 9-12 exam, there is a page with a picture on it that shows a chemical laboratory. The question below the picture asks the student to identify the object that would be found in a chem lab. The three possible answers are given in picture form: a beaker, a tire swing, and a tray of food.
Now, I would be the first to admit that I am not trained in the education of children. But shouldn’t ninth through twelfth graders be able to handle more complex questions that that? Shouldn’t they be able to answer questions where the possible choices are given in words and not pictures?
And the essay questions---shouldn’t they come to the test already knowing how to write essays? Is it necessary to write an entire page of instructions telling them how to write their essays? Literally, there is a page that shows how to write an introductory paragraph complete with hypothesis (which was also defined), how to use the next one or two paragraphs to give reasons/facts to support one’s hypothesis, and a summary paragraph.
On the essay questions, the sad thing is—even with all that “help”, most students couldn’t write a correct simple sentence to save their lives much less a coherent essay. Most of the hand writing on the 9-12 exams is indistinguishable from that on the 1-2 exams. The grammar is only slightly improved.
What are we doing to our children?
In my spare time, I have been perusing my favorite blogs in hopes of it helping some of my own ideas cement (BTW, check out the sidebar for the links to some great blogs). So until then, I guess you will have to deal with the rambling, sometimes fractured nature of my writing. ;-)
The other reason I have not posted much this week was that this past week was crazy. And when I say crazy, I mean it sucked big time.
Part of the reason it was a bad week (the other reason is another post all together) was that I started a second, part-time (seasonal) job somewhat unprepared. I work in the lab from 8AM-5PM and then work at the second job from 6PM-10PM---and for some reason, last weekend I didn’t get the domestic things done that would have smoothed this past week out some—ya know, like doing the laundry so I didn’t have to run around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to find a clean shirt in the morning, making meals in advance so I wouldn’t be forced to grab crappy take-out for dinner on my way to job #2, etc..
And I know 60 hours is a lot but I worked considerably more as a grad student and then as a post-doc. In those
Anyway, the second job has nothing to do with chemistry, will run until June and will help contribute several hundred dollars a month to the savings account. Also, I am meeting new people (not chemistry geeks!) and learning new skills which are nice bonuses.
So what am I doing in this second job? I am scoring the standardized exams that kids in K-12 have to take. I am 32 years old, but I still vividly remember those exams from grade school.
They were long, hard, and grade level specific (meaning third graders all took the same test, fourth graders all took the same test but different from the third grader test, etc.). They had subject-based sections: math, English grammar, science, reading comprehension, etc. They were completely multiple choice. The only pictures on the exam were usually in the math section to help one determine the parameter of a yard or the circumference of a circle.
Fast forward to today’s exams. About the only thing that hasn’t changed is the little red stops they place on the exam to indicate one has reached the end of a section (Is it weird that I got little warm fuzzies from seeing the stop signs again?)
There are five types of exams: K, 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. Each type of exam has three levels: A, B, C.
Initially, I thought that the A, B, C exams were all the same level but the questions were slightly different to prevent cheating. Uh no. The complexity increases with each level so they are three different exams entirely. And do you know who decides which level of exam your child takes? His/her teacher. I may be alone in this, but I find that a little disturbing. What if the child is given too easy/hard of a test? The implications for your child advancing or the track they might be placed on as a result are scary.
Gone are the subject sections from the exams. Questions from various subjects are mingled together. The only sections that exist are hearing comprehension and reading comprehension.
Also, gone are the text-only multiple choice questions. Usually, there is a picture on the page and two or three multiple choice questions below that refer back to it. Essay questions are now standard—which I applaud. I graduated high school with too many people barely able to sign their own name.
Unfortunately, the questions seem to be dumbed down. For instance, on the 9-12 exam, there is a page with a picture on it that shows a chemical laboratory. The question below the picture asks the student to identify the object that would be found in a chem lab. The three possible answers are given in picture form: a beaker, a tire swing, and a tray of food.
Now, I would be the first to admit that I am not trained in the education of children. But shouldn’t ninth through twelfth graders be able to handle more complex questions that that? Shouldn’t they be able to answer questions where the possible choices are given in words and not pictures?
And the essay questions---shouldn’t they come to the test already knowing how to write essays? Is it necessary to write an entire page of instructions telling them how to write their essays? Literally, there is a page that shows how to write an introductory paragraph complete with hypothesis (which was also defined), how to use the next one or two paragraphs to give reasons/facts to support one’s hypothesis, and a summary paragraph.
On the essay questions, the sad thing is—even with all that “help”, most students couldn’t write a correct simple sentence to save their lives much less a coherent essay. Most of the hand writing on the 9-12 exams is indistinguishable from that on the 1-2 exams. The grammar is only slightly improved.
What are we doing to our children?
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