Today was my first time helping out with the ACT at my new school and it was a different process than what I’d been doing up until now, which was kind of weird. The biggest thing was the lack of anything to engage my mind, aside from the weird things I noticed on the ceiling and the different posters that did not have enough educational information to have to cover (or that had small lettering). I proctored in a chemistry room, which seemed like it was the same chemistry room I took chemistry in so many years ago. I wish I had been more focused back then, because there was a lot of really cool stuff in there! I also got to look at a tiny table of elements as I walked by it. I had forgotten a lot of the symbols, like W is tungsten and Hg is mercury (if I remember correctly). I think there are more elements now than there was when I was in school – there’s a bunch of three letter elements that start with U and have three letters rather than one or two, like Unq or something. I also learned that Neodynamite is a thing.

I’m really mixed about giving the ACT during the school day. On the one hand, I get that it’s an equity thing and kids who haven’t taken it or wouldn’t take it outside of school get to take it, for free, this one time. I think the ACT is far more useful than the MCA, because you actually need the score from the ACT (or SAT) to get into a lot of colleges.

I still think standardized tests are terrible, though. How do we know there isn’t a mistake in the test? We aren’t allowed to even look at it as teachers, and kids can’t discuss it. In fact, I read the instructions for proctoring and in one part, it instructed us to take devices away and contact ACT before returning them. Apparently the ACT people can legally confiscate property? And the rules are overly strict in the first place – no water bottles, for example. Finally, I don’t trust the results of any of the standardized tests for a myriad reasons, which because I’m up too late already, I’m not going to totally go into tonight. Let’s just say that they show something, but I’m not convinced it’s important. Like finishing 75 questions in 45 minutes on the English test.

Tomorrow we’ll go back to school and I’ll be back to the squirrelly 9th graders and the OVER IT seniors and we’ll move forward. After three hours or so of low stimulation today, I’m ready.