# @emilyventures on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/BhZOOzMnIa4
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/14159801-emilyventures-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/d4b686dcd0.jpg
- **Posted:** 2018-04-10T14:57:37.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Emily A Hart (@EmilyVentures) — https://gondola.cc/EmilyVentures

## Caption

Today we begin the weeks long saga of standardized testing. I'm sure you have some opinions. So do I. .
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My first year teaching, almost 10 years ago, I taught 8th grade math. It was a "high stakes" year in Louisiana which means that if a kid doesn't pass the math and English test in the spring they don't pass 8th grade. They'd be forced to summer school (where I would just teach them everything again as quickly and boring as possible) just to take the test again. Fail again -- back to 8th grade. You can imagine how traumatic this was. .
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I always think about this kid J I had that year. He was 17. He was sweet. He towered over me, covered in tattoos, couldn't read, and had been passed along between failing schools and held back every year by the test. He had special needs but the school was a recent state takeover by a for-profit charter so to say he got any help at all from anyone certified to do it would be too generous. Heck, I was not even certified to do it. (Somehow I actually got an award that year for teaching the most kids who passed that I keep on my desk -- as a reminder of the many kids who still didn't.) .
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He came to school every day. Helped me with everything. But he knew. We both knew.  This wouldn't have the ending of a trite hero teacher story. Results day came and he was in the gym with the kids who didn't pass. Crying as hard as I am right now typing this. As hard as the kids in the auditorium who did pass were. (Who were then ushered in to the cafeteria for cake and balloons. Yeah it was actually more effed up than this even sounds) .
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Because he was dealt different cards. Had different competencies than a biased for-profit test could ever measure. The tenacity to come back and try again. And again and again and again. I don't think I could do that. .
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So all of this to say, whether you're a parent, teacher, kid, or um alive -- there are things we cannot measure. That are more important than the things we can. Let's remember to value those things. #jessdaytuesday

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jessdaytuesday

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