Lesson One – Three Cheers for Testing

It’s over, thank God it’s finally over. This week in the state of Arkansas schools across the state took part in the madness that is benchmark testing. For four days we subjected our students to mind numbing testing in the hopes that when the scores come back that our school will be seen as adequate. The system has never made since to me at all, we take a test that is designed and graded by individuals that have likely never been to our school, but we rely on them to tell us if we are doing a good job or not. Makes about as much sense as a basketball cleat. It’s a terrible system, I hate it, and I wish we could find a better method of assessment that is more accurate and doesn’t pound our students into submission through four days of pointless testing.

Lesson Two – That’s Embarrassing…

Going into this spring I had really high hopes for our annual fundraiser for Susan G. Komen Foundation…however, we are currently falling short on our goal of fundraising. For some reason or another this year has not been as successful as years past. However, there is good news. We do still have two weeks left in order to meet our goal, but it’s going to take a lot of work. Today I want to challenge my students to donate as much as possible to this worthy cause.

Lesson Three – Picture Day

Jealous?

It’s back again, next Friday we will be taking our spring pictures here at Woodland. Picture day is a very polarizing topic, either you really had picture day or you enjoy the entire process of getting dressed up nice and posing for a picture and awaiting the the proofs to come back. At the risk of sounding even more cynical in this blog post, I would say that I am not a fan of school pictures…especially at the age that I teach. 8th grade is a very awkward stage in your life and keeping documentation of how awkward that stage is seem a bit unnecessary to me. Nevertheless, we will continue to have them and the cycle will continue.

Mr. McClung

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