Assessment

Feeling the Test-Prep Pressure

By Anthony Rebora — May 24, 2012 1 min read
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Worried that her students aren’t ready for upcoming English Regents exam, the normally droll NYC teacher Miss Eyre finds herself coming a bit unglued:

I freely admit that I'm not handling this well. I'm taking it personally, practically as an affront to me, that my kids don't seem 100% ready this close to the test. I'm comparing my students to the other teachers' student and blaming myself for them not measuring up. I'm making myself sick over it, wondering what I've been doing wrong all year, talking myself down from freaking out on whatever child or colleague happens to be nearest by. And then the talk goes in a bigger circle, expanding into indignation against the Board of Regents for making my kids take such a stupid test and eventually the universe for a long list of tangentially related sins.

She says she has no real point in sharing this, but we’d say it’s a helpful—perhaps representative?—glimpse into a dedicated teacher’s professional life this time of year.

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A version of this news article first appeared in the Teaching Now blog.