Kentucky Teacher

Kimberly Shearer

A minute per question. That’s the time I was given to answer 120 multiple-choice questions on my Praxis test this morning.

This spring, I’ll be graduating with my Rank I in Library Media Education, and the Praxis test is just one part of the certification process. A minute per question is actually more time than my juniors have for each passage on the ACT Reading test, and as I frantically bubbled my Praxis answer sheet, I suddenly felt very close to my students. 

Part of that closeness came from my frustration. Two years of my life were suddenly reduced to 120 multiple-choice questions. The evidence of my Rank I coursework and its effects on my instruction couldn’t be found in the pages of that test booklet. Sure, I could rattle off Dewey classes, taxonomies and tips for creating a library budget, but where were the blogs that my Rank I classes helped me create with my English III students? Where were my students’ persuasive digital stories or their annotated bibliographies?

The ways I’ve grown as a teacher, the ways my Rank I education helped my students — none of it was there. The lasting results of my coursework all existed outside of what a standardized test could capture. But the clock was ticking, so I kept bubbling. Read the full story