Framing this for later

I have 15 minutes to write this, and that’s all I need. What proceeds is a quick note updating my state of mind for those of you at home. I want to press play on my writing. I “want to start writing more,” as in, more than I wanted to write when I last wanted to start writing more. I need practice dancing with ideas in a white space to illustrate feelings and solutions. That’s what I am here for.

The satisfaction of writing comes from the culture of it, and I am on an island, separated from all writing communities of which I’ve ever fathomed being a part. I am on a Medium page. My Medium page. Alone. In the white space. Creatively at sea. I know how to swim, only I don’t know where to swim, and there is practically no difference.

I have spent a lot of time thinking, lately, as I proctor exams for state tests. I have been chasing memories from my past to ply my faculty with memoir. Early returns are not promising. I spend most time thinking of how I could uncover lost memories rather than filling out memories myself. I need more practice with storytelling.

Proctoring exams is an introvert’s paid vacation. I have been blessed to proctor exams for the past week. An added bonus of these efforts has been the utter lack of stakes for me. I am secured to new employment, and the metrics to evaluate my performance as a teacher have been paused, and, finally, the subject I teach was not assessed for my students this year. I and my mind were free, from anxiety, to wander.

The first morning brings a certain tension, with the need to attend to the unreasonable specifications of standardization for the test. The wall coverings were double-checked, the boards thoroughly erased, the cell phones were stored in separate rooms, the computer tabs were closed out, the communication software exited, all in the name of standardization. Once the elements were set aright, the instructions were precisely given, the initiation carefully observed, the test begun. Like a distance-running coach, I sent my pupils on their way and was left to ponder. Proctors are not allowed to observe any of the test, but must keep an eye on student screens to detect cheating, and so we must form a contradiction, executing a resting gaze with the vigor of a starved hawk. To avoid focusing in on test content, I would amble down particular tracks of fantasy, imagining my future employment, designs for a classroom I have never seen, first-day speeches as ephemeral as they are inspirational; or I may take inward stock of the state of the NBA, a half-hour focused on standings, rosters, predictions, and future scenarios; or I would practice political combat, smacking down the disingenuous rationale of a villainous counter-legislator’s critique. It was the rarest of occasions: I thought about what I want to do with my life.

A chief virtue of exam time is the introduction of a common enemy to bond teacher and student. I believe this bond is somewhat pivotal and inextricable. Students see their teachers’ anxiety, the dronelike precision with which they follow test protocols and proctor scripts, behaving in a manner outside any one’s default paradigm, which by this point will have become well established. Teachers and students are both held hostage by state tests. Teachers are forced to administer tests and then coldly shepherd students through. Sometimes, during testing, when I say “(student name), please continue testing,” (this phrasing is ordained in the proctor guide), what I really mean is “I love you and I know you can do this.” The state will never recognize my conduct for a mutiny. Only I can hear the inward cackle at my perfect crime. Ironically, the refusal to allow teachers to view and perceive the test allows teachers to more easily wipe their hands of any pain and struggle inflicted by the test. Any regular tension between teacher and student is dissolved. Along those lines, however, the silence of the exams is next to holy. In dealings with middle schoolers, convincing them to sit quietly and engage thoughtfully with any task for any period of time is a victory. To observe them in a fully earnest state of hard work for hours — and to transition to and from that state alongside them through various units of these marathon tests — is to see them as you can only hope them to be.

I’m not sure what exactly these tests mean. It’s evident that they carry more weight for schools than they do for students, prior to the high school level, although just how much more is an open question. Effectively convincing 13-year-olds to achieve an impossible balance of zenlike focus for hours, and to do it for you, or your community, is awe-inspiring. Some students are naturally inclined to try, others need disingenuous lobbying effort on the part of the school to invest, others can be appealed to from a standpoint of community (i.e. “this school will not be here for your younger siblings if you blow this off”). Regardless of how the investment is fomented, the effort itself through these dreadful and cruel trials is essentially a favor to the school from teenagers. It makes the school look redeemable, it obliges the state’s hunger for data, and carries out “standardization,” which all but definitely means “white supremacy.” Were I a more revolutionary soul, I would apply fantasies of boycott to the situation.

The light in which students enduring exams can be viewed is a bath of gold. They are innocent, earnest, altruistic, and diligent. The test, our common enemy, affords me as a teacher to act the part of ally, when so easily am I cast as the villain during normal days. The vapidity of the day’s regimen is so perfect for my brain. State testing, my common enemy, my friend.