The Avid Reader (and enjoyer of all subjects)

One thing that almost every person hates during their childhood and adolescence is school.  Even people who are good in school have taken a disliking to it.  Well, next year would be a dream to them–five days off school, which means so many good things–more vacation days and playtime, sleeping in, and no studying for tests or doing homework. The teachers would not have to work as much as they do now.  And of course, Wake County would save money–a long-wanted goal.  Seems like a kill-three-birds-with-one-stone situation, right?

WRONG!!!  You wouldn’t expect teachers to get paid more for teaching less–that’s how Wake County saves money!  And the students will continue to have the incurable pandemic spring fever*, EVEN THOUGH Wake County is shortening the school year–no matter what day the last day of the school year falls on, there will always be days when students are impatient for the end of the school year.  The average student would think, After all, I’ve passed the EOGs, no point to schoolwork after that, why try when I’ve already succeeded? 

The perfect solution would be to create an easy, short test for all subjects learned in school, but it would cover EVERYTHING learned in that grade level.  Therefore, all the students would concentrate on their school work right before the test, so spring fever would be cured.  And the people who CHOOSE not to do their best in school right before the test are going to wind up not passing it, so they will have to stay for a few days after school.  (I’m sure everybody would be pressured into doing their best at all times, even before the end of the year.) 

Wake County’s School Board is truly showing they are going bananas by taking school days away.  There will always be days right before the school year’s end, so students will always be prone to goofing off and not paying attention in school.  Instead, the Wake County School Board could make the EOGs easier, shorter, and covering all subjects covered in school and all curriculum covered for the duration of the school year.

*Spring Fever (spreeng FEE-ver) n. The behavioral change that happens to adolescents when the school year is almost over.

Before I came to North Carolina as a rising fifth grader, I lived in Virginia for almost nine years.  In that period, I experienced some of the best education in the United States.  There were two different levels of education:  GT (Gifted and Talented) and non-GT.  In the GT program classes, you learned what the non-GT students who were at the next grade level learned.  At the end of second grade, everybody took a test to see if they could qualify for GT.  In different areas, there was one “magnet” school and several other schools which weren’t magnet.  

Maybe you would like to hear the topics I learned then.  In third grade, we were learning about rocks, minerals, basic chemistry (powders such as iodine and plaster of paris), Ancient Egypt, and Ancient China.  When I was in third grade I learned fractions in fourth grade GT math.  When I was in fourth grade, I learned about forces (we did an experiment, using toy cars, to see how friction affected different surfaces such as sandpaper and aluminum foil) and Virginia history.  I skipped to fifth grade GT math then, and learned pre-algebra and algebra. 

In North Carolina, however, the education took me completely by surprise.  In fifth grade, we were learning addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division!  And in middle school, more problems arose.  Many people from Raleigh were traveling 10 miles to get to our school, and there were nada magnet schools in the Cary area.  Moreover, it was simply luck that helped us in the magnet schools 10+ miles away.  Tests to apply could have been better–like NCSSM’s tests.  What’s more, in the schools in my area, all the students were just clumped up together, not separated like Virginia’s schools. 

In my opinion, people should take a test to qualify for a certain school.  If they get good scores, then they will go to a magnet school in their area.  If they don’t do really well, they’ll go to a nearby school to be with people who got the same scores.  I think that people should learn topics more their own level, not just the grade requirements that the School Board controls.  In this way, school won’t be too easy for some people, and won’t be too hard for others.

Here’s a trivia question for you:  what is very long, hard, and aggravating?  The answer:  the EOG tests.  EOG tests aren’t just very long, they’re three hours long–apiece, making 9 hours, total, of work for the students, if you don’t go to algebra or geometry.  But be thankful you’re not a teacher (if you’re not Ms. Paisie).  Teachers have to walk around the classroom for the whole test time, checking to make sure nobody’s cheating.  The EOGs are unbearably difficult, too.  Some questions are so tricky that it is almost impossible to get it correct without cheating.    The EOGs require students to still remember comprehension from last year–of course, some of that has already come out of an ear after coming in the other ear, for most students.  Therefore, we would need to keep our papers and tests from last year.  Not enough room?  And of course, once people learn of their 2 or 1 on the EOG, nobody cannot placate them.

The EOGs aren’t pleasant for anybody, including the administrators and the testmakers.  Then, why do we have them?  The state of North Carolina requires that the EOGs be taken.  However, there are many other options.  One choice is that passing to the next level all revolves around classwork–tests, projects, and quizzes.  After all, cheating on the EOGs just requires the sneaky peek of an eye.  C’s, B’s, or A’s should be the grades required to pass.  Mostly, classwork reflects the honest work of a student–a smart student would still be stumped by some questions on the EOGs. 

EOGs are unpleasant in every way possible–the length, the difficulty, and the effects, and I’m sure the School Board could finally make a wiser decision by taking back the EOG tests and determining that schoolwork would be more important than something long, hard, and aggravating.