She said, “I graduated from the University of Utah, too!”
She’s a very Special Education teacher who is now teaching in Hawaii. She came up to me to give me a hug and to tell me she enjoyed my little speech on stupid testing.
(Now, to be clear, the lawyers at NEA asked me to stop calling the tests “insane” since this is an actual medical condition and it may be offensive to insane people to be equated with the testing mania sweeping the country, so under legal advisement I have opted for the more technically correct term, “stupid”, knowing that it may offend technically “stupid” people. I apologize to them in advance.)
The gist of my little speech was that over twenty years ago as a 6th grade teacher at Orchard Elementary School in West Valley City, Utah, I was beginning to notice that people were giving standardized tests much more weight than they merited. I was beginning to notice that parents would glance at the portfolio of student writing and math work that I would assemble for each of my kids.
