Daylight Whining Time

I hate daylight savings time. There was a time when I didn’t mind it… just set the clock and forget about it… or typically, forget about it and show up early/late for church and feel like an idiot  However, with motherhood comes lots of new experiences, and daylight “mess up my internal clock and listen to me whine for a few weeks” time is one of them. Children are such creatures of habit! On Sunday morning, Autumn was up at her usual 7:00 a.m., but in reality it was 8:00 a.m. Then when it came time for bed, of course she wasn’t tired. A question… did the School District plan to start their testing the week after daylight savings time, or was it one of those unfortunate coincidences? I’d really like to believe that there is no mastermind planning to torture children by making them take these tests, but I have my doubts… no child left behind… a nice idea gone terribly wrong! Teachers are now forced to teach so that the kids can pass a specific test… this leaves no time for creative teaching… where’s the science and art projects? Where are the creative thinkers? It’s just math and reading, math and reading, and while I know these subjects are important, isn’t it also important to teach problem solving… to teach these kids how to learn, rather than just try to cram facts so they can pass a test? Last year my daughter’s school failed their “test.” It wasn’t the fault of the school, but of the tests themselves. The tests are not designed for ESL students, but for English speaking students and my daughter’s school had a big increase in the Hispanic population in the last few years. The Hispanic kids are not stupid… ask yourself how well you would learn if you were thrown into a situation where you were not that familiar with the language! Under the circumstances, I think they do a terrific job. However, with no one at home able to read English in order to help them understand the work they need to do, it is difficult… I know. I have helped several of my daughter’s friends, because their parents don’t read English. I don’t know what the solution is, but it’s not teaching kids to pass tests! And it’s not scheduling the tests right after daylight savings time changes!