Wednesday, March 9, 2011

The Bittersweet Taste of Tests

My fourth graders took a Language test today that didn't go too well.

I had a stack of completed tests on my desk and one student up at my desk to work out a problem. His test was on the top of this stack. The poor kid was hunched over in confusion and concentration. We worked through one sentence together, then I told him to work through the next one alone and turned to talk to another student.

When I turned back around, I saw him chewing on the corner of the Language test. My biggest problem with this: it wasn't his test! There really is a chunk of paper missing from the corner of someone's test. He was so focused that he didn't realize that he was eating paper. Neither one of us knew how to respond when we realized what he was doing so we agreed that he probably shouldn't eat paper anymore.

Maybe I should provide chips and salsa for the next test.

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