Who remembers ISTEP questions?
Rick A. Richards

I never took an ISTEP test. In fact, I can recall taking one of those fill-in-the-circle-with-a-pencil tests only once. I don't remember a thing about it.

What I do remember is that school was fun. I had teachers who - to use today's catch phrase - worked outside the box.

In my eighth-grade social studies class at Hartford City Junior High, I was exposed to a few days of the ancient Mayan culture of Mexico. Tony Cox (we never dared use his first name, by the way; he was always Mr. Cox), would get so worked up over the chapter that he would clear the top of his desk and act out a human sacrifice on himself.

He explained the importance of the ritual to the Mayan culture and how it was the centerpiece of its religion. He described in vivid detail the clothing and headdress worn by the high priest. Then, he would grab an eraser to represent the ceremonial sacrificial knife, flop backwards onto his desk where, even as he was spread-eagled, he continued to talk.

Thrusting the eraser at his chest, he explained how a beating heart was cut from the sacrificial victim's chest. By the time he was done, he was drenched in sweat. The entire class was mesmerized.

And you know what? Nearly four decades later, I remember every detail of it.

I can't remember a single question on that achievement test.

I remember Mark Alexander in English class at Lincoln High School in Cambridge City when I was a junior in high school, asking us to give reports on what we read in the daily newspaper. He interrupted us as we talked, challenging us on our facts. He would also walk the entire class to the gym, where he had us put on impromptu skits to act out the definition of emotion words like apathy, anxiety and fear.

It helped us overcome our own feelings of self consciousness because everyone had to do it. It was different and, more than three decades later, I remember those lessons.

I don't remember a single question on an achievement test.

And that's what's missing today in our schools. It's not that there aren't teachers like Tony Cox and Mark Alexander around. There are lots of them. But they're being handcuffed by politicians and school administrators who want to try and quantify learning. You can't.

So we're stuck with ISTEP scores that don't do a thing to improve education. Teachers spent the first few weeks of this school year teaching the test. They didn't necessarily want to, but they had to.

And it doesn't matter whether the test is held at the beginning of the school year, in the middle or at the end. The weeks leading up to it will be all about the test, not about learning. God forbid there be anything out of the ordinary that might inspire students to learn something that's not on the test.

But what can you expect from school leaders - both downstate and right here - who can't figure out a sensible snow-day policy?

What's more important? Making up a few days so you can simply mark them off the calendar and meet some arbitrary learning limit set by bureaucrats? Or making sure the days you do have are filled with learning that's fun, exciting and memorable?

Most of the people my age are now the ones in charge of our schools and sitting in the Legislature. They seem to have forgotten how much fun learning be, because they've done all they can to remove fun from the equation, replacing it with tests and marking calendars.

Rick A. Richards is city editor of The News-Dispatch. He can be reached at rrichards@thenewsdispatch.com or at 874-7211, Ext. 441.