I Think We're Measuring The Wrong Things

-

 As we near the end of the school year [not that I'm in school, or have kids in school, but I am aware that such things happen], I'm reminded of my elementary school days in Texas. Unique moments:

We said the Texas Pledge of Allegiance every morning after saying the National Pledge of Allegiance.

We had open-floor-concept classrooms--different rooms were separated just by bookshelves, pillars, or maybe just by space.

And we took an annual competency assessment that went by various acronyms as time went by: TAKS, TAAS, STAAR, also [before my time] TABS, TEAMS (learn all about it in this little booklet!). 


I don't remember much of what was on those exams, except for one--a story about a violinist. As I understood it at the time, the short snippet focused on a particular female violinist, who apparently was very good and was 1st Chair Violin in her orchestra, but during one performance, her violin broke. And then she broke a lot of the other violinists' violins as she commandeered them one by one. And at the end of the performance, the conductor bowed down to her and cried.

It has been almost a quarter of a century, and I still remember my confusion: why is she described as a good violinist if she keeps breaking violins and making her boss cry?

Eventually--as in, in the last decade--I came to the conclusion that her part must have been necessary to the success of the piece, and so she sacrificed several violins to keep the show going. So as I think back to that moment in 5th grade, my main takeaway is that whatever questions that followed to check for understanding of the passage clearly did not accurately assess one's comprehension, because I managed to pass the test without any idea what was going on.

Also, if anyone knows who that account was about, please let me know, because it is one of the great unsolved mysteries of my childhood.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dogsledding: Guest Post

-
Image
 Happy Birthday to Mark, and he wrote this post.  One of the benefits of traveling to snowy northern Norway is that there are a plethora of winter activities to do.   Besides the usual skiing/snowboarding, snowshoeing, and snowmobiling, there are also things more unique to Tromsø, such as reindeer sleigh rides and dogsledding.   We went dogsledding twice during our Norway travels.   This is the story of the first of those adventures.   The dogsledding company of our first experience is located at the Tromsø Golf Club, the northernmost 18-hole golf course in the world.  Buried in snow in the winter, it becomes the perfect place for an amazing dogsledding experience.  The dogsledding company runs shuttle busses from Tromsø city center to the dogsledding camp.  It takes about an hour to get there and the views along the way are spectacular. The noise on arrival was also spectacular.   They have well over 100 dogs there and they all want to talk to each other at full volume. The dogs
Read more

RATS! A Guest Column

-
Image
  On May 10, we began the move into our new apartment.  It is in the same building as our old apartment.  In fact, it is just down the hall on the same floor.  Our lease renewal was coming up on our old apartment and the rent on our old apartment was going up significantly.  If we were going to pay a bunch more for our old apartment, why not get a bigger and refurbished apartment for slightly more than what our new rent was going to be?  The new apartment would still be a one-bedroom, but would have a study and would also have a half-bath by the front door.  The big draw for us is the study, which is too small to be considered a second bedroom but will be big enough to have a crib [because SPOILER! pregnant].  The half-bath is unnecessary (except for if we have guests over who want to use the bathroom without going through our bedroom, but we almost never have guests) and is actually a hindrance as it takes away from kitchen space. Our lease on the old apartment did not run out until t
Read more

Thoughts on Pregnancy

-
Image
 I have hit the 6-month mark in gestation. I'd like to say that means I'm two-thirds of the way done, but actually, * psych! * pregnancy is 10 months, not 9. I don't know why we say pregnancy is 9 months; maybe it averages in all the preemies. So far, I have to say first trimester is the worst. Constant nausea, and too early to tell people why you feel terrible. Mark likes to point out that I never threw up, but nausea is terrible all on its own, so I didn't find that comforting. Second trimester has less nausea, but also less energy. Like, I was running 2-3 miles a day up until 2nd trimester. Now I'm running 1 mile a couple times a week, but as of this week I think even that is going to stop because the 2 times I ran this week left me with such pain in my pelvic area--and that's even with a belly band thing to try to support the extra tummy weight--that changing positions hurt all day. Also, I'm not a fan of the nighttime leg cramps. These are charley-horse
Read more