Fill in The Bubbles Completely

"Decomposition" notebook by Pamela Barsky

It's the season of the Standardized Test, a time when all across the country kids are told to eat a proper breakfast, get lots of rest (maybe even forgo American Idol for a night), and sharpen their #2 pencils.

That's good advice, to a point. I mean, aren't kids supposed to do those things every day anyway? If kids have spent the entire school year staying up to0 late, skipping breakfast, and trying to write with broken pencils, it's likely that they missed a lot of the information on which they'll be tested. Rest and good nutrition during testing week isn't going to boost those scores very much, if at all. This is a good example of the horse-already-left-the-barn policies in education that perplex me.

Another good one is foreign language instruction, which typically doesn't begin until kids are in middle school, under the assumption that younger kids can't handle such difficult, complex material. As it turns out, the window for learning a second language naturally, easily and fluently closes right around ages 11-13. Whoops.

I think the kids deserve a little treat for getting through those long, quiet days of conscientiously filling in bubbles. Go out for ice cream, see a movie, or take a hike in the woods to stretch those legs after testing week. Then stay up late, and have doughnuts for breakfast on Saturday. They've got another year to rest up.