PTA: Parent, Teacher, Asshole

NO! Not those kinds of STDs you jerks...geez. You should be thinking, "I know he couldn't have caught a sexually transmitted disease! He must be making a clever play on words."

STDs = Standardized Testing Doldrums

I got drafted by the high school portion of my school to help monitor the standardized test that high school students have to pass in order to receive a diploma. Ugh. They were testing more students this year than ever before and they just didn't have enough people. This test, as with most standardized tests, requires high security and that means one test administrator and one monitor. They took me out of my classroom so that I could watch students taking a test. Ugh.

I stood for at least two hours each day, ambling around the class of no more than eight students, for three days straight. I couldn't sit. I couldn't read. Watch and walk were my requirements.

Now, the original set-up was that a substitute coming in for one of the teachers helping the test coordinator administer the test to a student in the afternoon who needed special accomodations, would come to my room in the morning until the testing for the day was done, and then I'd return to my proper life as a teacher. Nuh-uh. That didn't happen. Apparently one sub became two, and I can only imagine how that transpired. "He CANNOT use MY sub for half a day and it get recorded in MY file." I'm sure something similar was said after the plan was originally hatched. It didn't really matter to me except...

Since we had a substitute who could cover for me the whole day, the parameters of my draft were extended. I became an educational free-agent/ass-of-all-trades. I was to be wherever I was needed. I got called down to my portable to calm my class who decided that ELA meant Energetic Lobbing Academy...Unfortunately, my sub had no control of my class on her last day in my room and they decided to hurl pencils about. If I taught science they could have argued they were demonstrating projectile dynamics or creating a three-diminsional live display of a meteor shower. In an English/Language Arts class, it's just throwing junk. I become the high school gym substitute. High school gym at my school seems to be where one can go and see into the Eighth Ring of Hell. Actually, that holds equally true for middle school gym. I sat in on a couple of classes while a teacher was running a bit behind.

I didn't mind, technically. I mean, I've always felt my job isn't just to teach in my classroom. My job is to do whatever needs to be done to ensure the smooth running of the school overall. But I was bored out of my mind for three days and I lost three days of education in my classroom. I remember when I first started...If someone said, "Hey, can we come in during your classtime and do this program?" or "Look, there's this thing I want you to go to, so we'll put a sub in your room," I would jump at the opportunity. "YES! PLEASE! TAKE THE PRESSURE OFF ME!" I couldn't understand my partner (there were only two of us then) who would refuse pretty much every intrusion. Now I understand. I want to be in my room. I don't want to show movies anymore. I want to teach. I have stuff I need to impart.

Clearly that doesn't mean I say "no," though. I just don't feel relief anymore.

One of the reasons it was a bad three days was possibly my imagination. I got the feeling that my middle school team resented me being in the high school. It may be my imagination stemming from earlier in the year when I was considered a spy by my team, but I think they thought I was getting a sweet deal. Well, uh, fuck no. It was horrible. I was a watch dog. I watched. Ugh. Give me lesson plans and unruly students any day over a standardized testing day.

But at least I think my STDs are clearing up. I've been told to expect a relapse, however, as the 6 days of standardized tests are set to arrive in my middle school next week. Ugh.