What’s Less Fun Than Watching A Math Test?

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When you read the question above you probably told yourself that there aren’t many things less fun than watching 25 students take a Math Test. You would be right. There are very few things I can think of that are less fun than watching students take a Math Test.

Lucky me, tomorrow I get to do one of them. Tomorrow my school will administer the End-of-Grade Reading Test to our students. Trust me, watching 25 students take a Reading Test is much less fun than watching them take a Math Test.

Watching students take an End-of-Grade Math Test has moments of action. The students are busy writing out calculations, using their graph paper, and when they finish the part of the test done without a calculator the administrator – that’s me -  gets to take them a calculator and clip the non-calculator part of the test booklet closed. You want to talk about nerve wracking responsibility. I have to get that paperclip on that booklet just right so it doesn’t fall off.

Once they have their calculator, the students are right back to work solving the test problems. As long as they are working, walking around monitoring them is at least somewhat less than coma inducing.

The End-of-Grade Reading Test offers none of the action and excitement of the End-of-Grade Math Test, at least not from the test administrators point of view. Once I’ve handed out the test booklets, answer sheets, and pencils, the only things I will have to do is walk around and make sure all the students are staying awake and call the three-minute breaks at the end of each hour. Most of the time the students will be sitting still and reading. Once in a while they’ll actually sit up, pick up their pencil, and bubble in the answer to one of the multiple choice questions on the test.

Einstein said time is relative. I know time moves as different speeds depending on which End-of-Grade test the students are taking. It moves so much slower when they are taking the Reading Test than when they are taking the Math Test. I just wish there was some objective way to prove it.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator