Text Anxiety

Maybe this is what's wrong with the Test.

Am I allowed to say "wrong"? Or "anxiety"?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I vote to take up a collection and send the school board several thousand little plastic dinosaurs.

A commenter on the original article proposed testing students on how many of the banned words and ideas they could use correctly in a composition. "The Dinosaurs' Bar-mitsva" could be fun to read and write!

LittleRed1

E Hines said...

Next we'll be banning Dr Seuss because of all those scatological words he made up. Or requiring him to be taught exclusively because none of those made-up words could possibly offend anyone.

Ultimately, our grade school English lessons will be taught by the Victor Borge method.

Oh, wait....

On the other hand, what about me? I'm offended by all those blank spaces where "dinosaur," "birthday," and censored appear.

Eric Hines

E Hines said...

Am I allowed to say "wrong"? Or "anxiety"?

You're not allowed to say "Test." It evokes too much censored.

Eric Hines

bthun said...

"Am I allowed to say "wrong"? Or "anxiety"?

You're not allowed to say "Test." It evokes too much censored."


Und how does zat make you veel?

Und vat are you doing vit zat tire-iron?!

Gringo said...

Given the variety of human responses, there is no such combination of words that will produce no anxiety.

I got anxious about tests when I didn't know the material. It would only be proper that I should have been allowed to skip questions which caused me anxiety because I didn't know the answer.

E Hines said...

Und vat are you doing vit zat tire-iron?!

Hey! Watch your potty mouth. I'm offended!

Mommy!!!!

Eric Hines

douglas said...

Call me crazy that I think it might be a good idea to help the young 'uns leaarn to deal with anxiety, rather than shield them from it till they graduate college, and then drop the poor, unprepared darlings in the real world...

Texan99 said...

No, Gringo has grasped the solution: the tests will evoke less anxiety if we hand out the answers in advance. They'll be easier to grade, too.

Grim said...

Well, heck, why not let the students fill out the tests, and then grade themselves based on what they feel their effort was worth? That would save everyone time and upset.

E Hines said...

...let the students fill out the tests, and then grade themselves....

Ooh, how terribly stressful.

"Let's see, now, what grade should I give myself? All the kids tease that egghead Marky; he's so smart. But dumb Alvin, I don't want to look like him. Mary, what grade are you giving yourself?

"Ohhh, all this worry is giving me a headache.

"Mommy!!!?"

Nah. Better to teach them to be Progressives, and to accept and respect the decisions of their leaders. Here, to accept with gladness in their hearts the grades arbitrarily assigned by their teachers.

After all, if their grades are unrelated to their level of effort, they no longer have to suffer the stress of making an effort. Poor little dears....

Eric Hines

BillT said...

“This is standard language...” said a Department of Education spokeswoman, insisting it’s not censorship.

She can also insist that a skunk's rump smells like Chanel Number Five -- with about the same credibility...