The trouble with schools is they always try to teach the wrong lessons

Ugh, it's around that time of year again where I'm getting mixed signals from everyone and everything: we're right upon the brink of summer, and so students all around me are rejoicing, and teachers are too for that matter - trust me I know, my mother is one the few and the proud. So you can see how the majority of people would be thrilled to be getting out of school soon and into the pool-area instead, or going to the beach or something... and then you take into consideration the fact that most students are also currently going through exams - I know I am. And our exam schedule this year is kind of weird, if you ask me - this upcoming Monday is memorial day, and so of course no one's going to be in school, but unfortunately for students at my school it means that we started testing yesterday, and will continue testing all through next week. Fun, right? Four hour exams, lunch, and then a two hour review session each day. Now that is my idea of fun. I truly hope that you're sensing just how steeped that text is in sarcasm.

Yesterday was my Civics and Economics exam... now you see, I love history - really, I do, World History was a breeze last year... but I hate civics with a passion. I mean, really, I do. I get that it's important and everything, sure, and that it's pretty much everything that our country depends on (Thank you, Ms. S for beating that into our heads :] Now where's that civics party?)... but really, I would just rather not had to learn it, or at least learned a more condensed version or something. To be honest, I'm pretty sure that watching Law and Order on TNT is one of the only reasons I probably passed that exam (IF I passed it... I better have). Civics was an EOC this year, so that kinda sucked even more because it meant that my teacher didn't write the test...

Seriously, I find standardized testing extremely idiotic: We have a curriculum which each individual teaches in their own individual style, with their own emphasis' on certain points... and then you expect a generalized test to be enough to gauge how much a student has learned in a year? I mean no offense or anything, but let's take everything that you do in your job, assign different people with different personalities and education/experience levels, sum what you do up really quickly and watch all those different people put emphasis on different things, and then give the people they taught a generalized test. I guarantee that some scores will be higher than others solely based on the teaching style of the teacher in question. Teachers should write their own tests based on the emphasis of the things they taught over the course of the year - that's not to say that the state shouldn't give us a curriculum to follow, but it's not as though the state is in the heads of the teachers, or the students... I mean, that's just absolutely assumptive, and not at all intelligent. You want to know how much each student has learned in a year? Great. How about you actually test them on what the hell it was that they were taught.

No offense or anything, but people involved in the department of education, or whatever it happens to be called officially, are so steeped in politics that they don't even understand the meaning of the word 'education' anymore.

Now let me tell you, my English exam went swimmingly today - but I kind of expected that. For one thing, words are my trade, and for another, my teacher wrote the exam. There wasn't a question on there that she hadn't taught us this year, and so of course we knew what we were talking about. I mean, that's the way it should be. Even better, once we had finished our exam, our teacher Ms. J let us have a poetry cafe, and that was awesome - in addition to the exam and what we knew, we all got to do something that we enjoyed as well. Now, to me, that's what makes a teacher great: who can get the information through your head, get you to understand it, and can get you to apply it.

I'm probably one of the few people out there who actually loves exams... and hates them at the same time. If it weren't for exams, I probably wouldn't pass my grade some years, not because I'm unintelligent, but because I'm somewhat lazy with homework and I know it... class work? No problem. Tests? Bring 'em on. But after I get home from my six-eight hours in school, don't EVEN think that I'm doing more work. Sorry, but i have a life. So I love exams because they help me pass and I always have gotten good scores on them... I also love them because it means that for a full week (and a half, as the current case may be) we get no homework from our teachers other than to study for the subject of the exam that we're taking the next day. It's pretty awesome. And then again I hate exams because... well, why does anyone hate exams? Sitting for four hours, not allowed to do anything, stress, the worry you might not pass... etc.

I get to take my geometry exam tomorrow... x_x I hate math. Math hates me.
Wish me luck.

- Georgiana <3