Thursday, April 15

AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

I think I just might go CRAZY! I am just glad that this week is winding down. This was AIMS week. Many of you may know of or remember the agony of AIMS. For me this was my first taste of how it works. Fortunately, I was on the administering end and not the testee end. What? Are laughing at me? Lets see you sit in a room filled with students that have ADD or ADHD and keep them sitting in their seats without talking to the person across the room for more than an hour. I can remember how hard that it was for me during testing time to sit for hours on end. I was lucky enough to enjoy reading and read my book when/if I finished my test before the time was up. These students despise reading. It bores them, they rather talk to the person next to them or to their friend across the room. I did make an excellent observation yesterday. I have a couple students that have done some tagging in the past so I told them to draw my name "Mr. Swann" graffiti style and I would then decide who was the best one. The room was completely silent for at least an hour. Today I asked my cooperating teacher if students could work on homework or draw once everybody in the room was finished with their AIMS. She called the site testing coordinator who thankfully gave consent as long as the test were removed from the room prior to the students working on anything else. So we handed out blank paper and some students got homework out that needed completion. I was rather amazed that they were able to keep somewhat quiet for two consecutive days, especially after sitting through the hours of testing.