Doing laps without swim lessons . . .

Who are we testing kindergarteners for? They say its the new 1st grade and they need to keep score. The days of naps, milk and cookies have been secretly replaced with this pseudo thinking that our babies will never erase. You see these young seeds have not developed analytical thought yet. And a true love for learning, they will never, ever get. Spelling “car” is less important than the answer on that sheet. We are starting too early to have them experience defeat. And you might think I’m crazy for not pushing children to score high at 5 years old but we are teaching to a test, let the truth be told, with “B” being the most likely choice for schools to win in this governmental hold, in this government hole, as a government whole, this has got to end.

Who are we testing 1st graders for? Once the age of writing sentences and lots of learning on the floor. Singing songs about basic computation, was once the way, now we force feeds these 6 year olds distributive property without relevancy? No longer playing in the sand. No longer learning through exploration and their hands. They can’t even spell “compute” but you expect them to be astute?  

Who are we testing 2nd graders for? Kids walking around telling their teacher assessed score. You are on a “B”, how dumb can you be. You are on an “L”, even if they no longer teach how to spell. Seven year olds can be mean as “puck”, “you failed the test? Awwwww you really suck”. Let’s not go there if you are classified with a disability. Staring at the paper, like the words you can’t see. Reading not reading but doing it alone. “This passage is too long. I want to go home.” 

Who are we testing 3rd graders for? In North Carolina we call it the EOG, but all states can still recognize what the government created it to be. Still strung out hard from common core. Still ignoring learning challenges, I can’t take it no more. I sent my young 3rd grader off to war today. He has learning challenges yet the test won’t go away. He doesn’t learn at the pace of the rest of the kids, yet this 3rd grade test gives prisons first dibs. I’m still contemplating on what I should do. When I was his age, we was running around, as summer came through. 

Now we are mutations of scholars, no longer our former selves. Education is about dollars not books placed on the shelves. We must return to homeschooling and community learning you see, cause public and charter schools care nothing about you and me. We need advocacy groups led by parents in the school and school administrators shouldn’t control all the rules. 

My son is smart. He is exceptional, but can’t pass that test no matter how he tries and the thought of him being a statistic makes me want to die. But this is a battle that every mother and father must change. Bring integrity back to our schools, instead of this ongoing test game.