This is Only a Test

*This is an extra column that I chose not to have published.
This past December I completed a Masters Degree program and now proudly have an MA  as part of my professional designation. In order for me to receive an endorsement through the state of Michigan in the area of which I hold my degree, I am required to take an exam. Why the state can't accept my diploma and 3.96 GPA as proof that I actually learned what the university expected me to learn, is a good question. I suspect that it has something to do with the fee I was required to pay. Regardless, somewhere along the line the testing became a standard part of teacher certification. So I paid my $57 or so dollars and registered for the test. When I got my testing information I read a laundry list of testing rules that made me wonder if I would be getting top secret government clearance along with my endorsement. For example, if we brought a water bottle it had to be clear with no label. Wow! Cheaters must be incredibly sophisticated these days! Were they able to create floating crib notes with alphabet soup noodles? When I got to the testing facility we were herded down a narrow, winding hallway into two rooms. We had to provide tickets and photo ID. After my purse was confiscated I jokingly told the woman sitting beside me that we would be asked to show our forearms and the soles of our feet next. Before we took the test we had to provide thumbprints and copy a sentence stating that we were in fact who we said we were. "Good grief!" I thought "I think my son had an easier time getting his passport!" All of that for a 100 multiple-choice question test. By the time all of the formalities were completed and we were directed to begin, I was so nervous that I might have accidentally come in with a stray MP3 in my purse (which would void my score) that I think I forgot half of what I went there to be tested on in the first place. Do I think tests are important? As an educator, of course I do. Do I think the testing craze has gotten a little bit out of hand? You bet. I had to wonder as I looked around that room if there was someone desperate enough to attempt to cheat. Maybe. Or maybe it's just a reflection on the state of morality in our society. Call me old fashioned, but I hold on to the notion that the majority of people would never dream of it because like their diploma verifies, they learned what they were supposed to and were able to prove it.

Explaining Those Random Injuries Takes Imagination

The other day I woke up as I usually do, except something was different about my knee. I started down the stairs and thought it kind of hurt and felt a little swollen. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I had done. It wasn't like I had some glamorous accident playing beach volleyball. I just woke up like that. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's not like I don't have a history of random bumps or bruises that have mysteriously appeared. In fact, I have so many I have contemplated writing down each time I run into something so that I can attach an explanation to the bruise or scrape that suddenly shows up somewhere on my body. Last winter I woke up with my hand hurting so badly that I could barely move it. I vaguely remembered falling into the house (I remember that one because the mishap was witnessed by my husband) a week or so earlier. Then I ripped up old carpeting and removed thousands of carpet tacks, but how could that cause such pain resulting in a wrist splint for two weeks? Unfortunately, there was no exciting story to go along with it. People would ask what happened and I'd embarrassingly respond, "Well, nothing. Nothing happened." After a day or so of this I jazzed it up a bit by saying "I fell." What I should have done was to add, "...down a long flight of stairs while I was chasing an armed fugitive!"  Maybe the bruise stories need a little embellishment too. "That bruise? I got that one from a rough landing when I was skydiving over the weekend...um...in Tahoe." Maybe I could explain the cut on my hand by saying I was whipping up a gourmet meal with Rachel Ray.  As I imagined the weird feeling in my knee getting worse for no apparent reason, I could envision people asking me what happened and me saying, "I don't know.  I just woke up like that one day." Which would be just as embarrassing as the wrist injury. I don't know why I worry about explaining unexplained injuries to people. Maybe it's because I lead a pretty uneventful life, or maybe it's because I just feel old. It's just another quirk in my life that I'm learning to get used to. So if you are wondering what happened to my knee, it happened when I was water skiing, no, slalom skiing, no, barefoot skiing! Oh who am I kidding? It's like all of my other injuries...I have no idea.