Thoughts on Testing

I wonder if public school teachers ever feel guilty about spending class time on 'test prep', or if they don't have any feelings about it because so much about the whole testing situation in schools is out of the teachers' hands.

Every year since Primo was in first grade I've ended our school year with a standardized test (we use the CAT-E), even though here in our state we only need to report test scores to the local district in 5th, 7th, and 9th-12th grades.  So these tests that I give them each year are just for practice (at the end of Primo's first grade year it was also because I was a little curious/worried about how our homeschool measured up compared to public school), with no consequences attached either for them or for me as their teacher.  This year is not a reporting year for either of my big boys, and even if it was I would have no concerns about their scores being below the percentile that they need to meet or exceed as homeschoolers.

So, why?  Why do I buy test prep books and spend a precious week of our school year having them run through exercises on topics that we haven't covered, or haven't covered in much depth?  I reassure myself that it is mainly so that they don't feel nervous or frustrated when they see those topics pop up on next week's test.  Also, it's good for me to know (by giving them the practice tests in the prep book) which areas they are weak in, in case I want to incorporate any of it into our new school year (for example, I found to my surprise that both boys could use a refresher on literary genres).  In a way, it's even fun-- these are, by definition, things we have not spent a lot of time on before, so they are fresh and new in a way that none of their other lessons would be, in this penultimate week of our school year.

And yet.  I have a niggling fear in the back of my mind that 'prepping' them for the test has something to do with my pleasure when I open their test results and see that they did very well in all sections of the exam.  It doesn't matter, doesn't give an accurate picture of them as students or certainly not as people.  But I've come to like seeing those high scores, and I'm afraid I would be disappointed if they didn't do as well, one of these years.

Just to be clear, they love the testing itself--they're amused by the formality of standardized testing, they think it's funny when I read the script word-for-word and time them (it probably helps that they are good at testing, and rarely run up against the time limits).  When Primo was six, in first grade, and we completed his first CAT-E exam, he turned to me and said, "You're the best teacher, Mama, and I love homeschooling".  Traumatized by testing, these kids are not.  They don't even seem to mind the test prep. 

It just feels to me almost like cheating, to do anything at all to get them ready for the test instead of just giving it to them cold, after going about our usual business up until testing day.

I think I'm thinking too much about this.  To make myself feel better, I'll enumerate some things I *don't* do:
1. look at the contents of the actual CAT-E exam in advance, in order to truly 'teach to the test'
2. teach to the test in general, throughout our school year
3. help the kids during the test in any way, or give them extra time

Maybe one of these years I'll be brave, and just hand them the tests without a minute of prep.  Maybe next year.

Schedules

We’re on day three of our month-long ‘December Break’.  After more than three months straight of 'lessons’ nearly every weekday morning, there is a holiday atmosphere around taking our mornings off.  I still insist that we all get dressed, make beds, and brush our teeth first thing.  And we always make ‘December Goals’ before this break, outlining some plans so that the month doesn’t fly by with nothing to show for it (in the past, the boys’ goals have mostly had a lot to do with hot chocolate and sledding, this year I asked them to include at least one thing they want to learn more about, and one thing they want to learn how to do or in which they want to improve their skills).  It’s not suddenly anarchy around here.  But we watch an episode of Doctor Who in the middle of the morning.  The boys open one of the twenty-four ‘literary advent calendar’ books.  Hours of drawing, playing and reading ensue.
Schedules and timing are one of the things about our homeschool that I’m always looking to refine and perfect.  Our yearly schedule is: the school year starts May 1st for the two boys (although Radish started lessons the January after he turned 4, so his ‘school year’ as far as moving up to the next level of writing and math is off from our school year as a family), we go three months and then take a month off—theoretically, although things get complicated around summer camp starting in July which is supposed to be an ‘on’ month for us, and sometimes I give them their standardized tests in the first week of April, although it is one of our three vacation months (April, August, December).  Our daily schedule is more fluid, although paper-and-pencil lessons mostly fall between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.  Lots of things that ‘count’ fall outside of these hours (reading, music lessons, physical education), but I try to hold our mornings free from outside activities because I found in our first years of homeschooling that if I’m not strict about this, we don’t have time to do much of anything academically.  This has meant, over the past few years, that we’ve missed out on a lot of things that are going on in the homeschool community, and which begin either in the morning or too early in the afternoon for us to manage to get there.
Being way off from the public school in our yearly schedule doesn’t bother me a bit, and the kids don’t mind except when someone asks them what grade they’re in and they have to think about it for a second.  The daily schedule is different-- every once in a while something very cool is happening in the morning or early afternoon in our homeschool community, and I have to stop and think about whether to make an exception to my rule about ‘morning is for us at home, doing lessons’.  Sometimes I bend a little, for a one-time thing like a field trip or for an academic co-op that meets often.  Right now we’re doing ‘Friday lessons’ with some good friends, as a kind of a mini co-op (just our two families).  It seems worthwhile to make an exception for this, because I want my guys to have the experience of doing academic and project work with other really bright kids.