Dead Air
Preparing for the State Standardized Test
Our state standardized testing begins in one week. My students will take a total of nine standardized tests over the course of two weeks. Language Arts. Math. Science. 11 total hours. During their last week of testing, students will sit for 130 minutes each day, taking two tests per day. In many classrooms in the building, preparation has already begun. Educator and author, Dr. Brad Johnson, reminds us exactly how much time teachers and students spend preparing for standardized testing every year.
According to 2016 data from the Education Writers Association, teachers spend on average, two weeks preparing students for standardized testing. States spend nearly $2 billion annually on these tests. What began in 2002 with No Child Left Behind (NCLB) as a system for teacher accountability and to measure student learning, is now today, mainly about collecting data. This data is then used to fund (or not) various curricular initiatives. Peter Greene, education writer for Forbes (and his own Substack, Curmudgucation , says, “high-stakes large-scale standardized testing continues to be one of the single most destructive factors in U.S. education.”
When I first started teaching, I took standardized testing very seriously. How could I not? Our entire grade-level stopped instruction a month early to prepare students for the test. Before computer testing, we printed worksheets with practice problems, directly teaching students how to answer various types of questions commonly found on standardized tests. I taught students how to eliminate obvious incorrect answer choices and locate key words in questions that would give them a clue as to the correct answer. I even coached students on what to eat for breakfast on the morning of testing. I passed out mints during the test to boost my students’ focus. In total, I spent a month preparing my students for standardized testing and a month testing.
I could not teach much of anything else during this time. Students were so brain dead after sitting for 90 minutes, that if I tried to read a story aloud or teach the American Revolution, I was met with zombie-eyed children counting down the minutes until it was time to go home. I learned quickly that during standardized testing time, my goal was to keep students quiet and focused on their test for as long as possible. Afterwards, I took them outside to play on the playground to let them be kids again.
25 years later, standardized testing persists, although my relationship to it has changed. Now, I spend as little time as possible preparing my students for the test. I will obligatorily demonstrate how to navigate the digital platform for the test. I will spend an afternoon letting students answering the practice questions. We will probably review a few problems just to ease my conscious. Many of my students will opt out of taking the standardized test this year. During testing, I will collect cell phones, spend the day walking around my room 5,000 times to make sure no one is cheating, and take my students outside to run around afterwards. For two solid weeks.
The week prior to standardized testing is dead air. In the 18th century, the term dead air was used to describe noxious air or slow-moving air. By 1921, however, with the advent of the telephone, radio, and television, dead air came to be known as an unintentional silence or static during a radio or television broadcast. The Wireless Age, one of the earliest radio communication magazines, used the phrase dead air in their July, 1921 issue explaining the optimal time of year for radio signal propagation.
The first five months of 1921 have been rather unusual for radio amateur work. During the first two months of the year, usually the best for radio work, there were many nights of ‘dead air’ and bad static. Now, at the beginning of summer, the weather has been cool. As a result, amateur radio operators are enjoying some good radio conditions.
The following year, on August 2, Alexander Graham Bell died. Two days later, at 6:25 p.m. EST, as Bell was being buried on his estate in Nova Scotia, operators paused telephone service across the United States and Canada for one full minute in honor of Bell. More than 14 million telephones fell silent. Dead air across North America.
As more and more people became used to listening to radio broadcasts or watching LIVE television, unexpected long pauses or unintended losses of connectivity caused confusion. Dead air is uncomfortable. During King George VI’s famous speech upon entering World War II, the King’s pauses were frequent and long due to his stammer. He often took moments to breathe trying to overcome his lisp and struggle speaking.
Today, especially with an ever-loudening world, periods of silence are difficult to endure. When we hear static, a long, silent pause, or lose our WIFI signal, we think there is a technical malfunction and immediately work to solve the problem. Even the term itself, dead air, implies that something is very wrong. Our connectivity as died.
Since August, the daily pace of the classroom never ceases. There is no slowness. Every day there is another box to complete on the curriculum pacing guide. Teachers march students day by day, worksheet after worksheet, until the last day of school. The only interruption is standardized testing; the big test that atomizes learning into multiple choice letters, imitations of writing, and data points used for funding.
But what to do in this liminal space before testing begins? This interruption makes for a challenging week. One week is not enough time to start teaching another unit of study. And in any classroom, a full week is far too much time to have nothing planned. I find it helpful to think of this dead air the same way I approached lockdown during the pandemic. Ryan Holiday discusses alive time versus dead time with Tim Ferriss.
“Alive time or dead time, what will it be?” I think whether this quarantine goes for two more weeks, obviously it’s going to go much longer than that, or whether it goes for two more years, all you know is that you have that block of time. What you do control is how you use that time and what you get out of it [emphasis mine].
Here is what I can control during this week.
Routines
There are a few things my students can count on when they come to school each day.
I will always be standing at the door first thing in the morning, tea in hand, ready with a fist bump and a warm greeting.
I will always have music playing in the classroom when students arrive.
There will always be a new Monday Mingle for students to solve.
We will always have a Family Meeting after the morning announcements.
I will always make time for students to silently read.
We will always go on a Pack Walk mid-morning.
I will stick to our daily schedule as much as possible.
While I cannot start teaching anything new, I can keep teaching our regularly scheduled content. In mathematics, we will continue studying and practicing how to multiply and divide fractions. This means we will still have thinking tasks on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, a note-taking day on Wednesday, and small-group support on Friday. In science, we are still learning about water and matter. Students can expect an essential question on Monday and the rest of the week to explore that question through videos, experiments, and discussion. Unfortunately, there will be some standardized testing preparation in reading and writing, but my students know that Mr. Neibauer will try to make this experience as painless as humanly possible.
Mindset and Attitude
Standardized testing time often makes me feel annoyed and disheartened. There are so many things I would rather be doing with my students than watching them test for eleven hours over two weeks. Still, my students know what to expect with my attitude. Everyday, I coach my students (and myself) in making the best of unpleasant situations. Do I want to start another 15-Day Challenge? I would prefer not to, however, there are things we must do. We can either suffer through them or make the best of the situation. While I cannot control much of this hot mess soup, students know that we will keep our wits about us and maintain our humanity with glimmers.
I cannot control my students’ attitude. By this time in the year, however, I know what to expect. I know who will arrive at school Monday morning, with a scowl and a bad attitude. I know who will be sleepy from staying up too late with friends over the weekend. I know who will be downright irate at being at school and being expected to learn in the classroom. Knowing all of this, my job, then becomes one of synergy.
How I Use My Time
As Ryan Holiday advises Tim Ferriss, What you do control is how you use that time and what you get out of it. I can control how I structure the time I have with my students. This means, I get to decide how to spend our prerequisite test preparation. Instead of trudging students through passage after passage, question after question, I can choose another way. I can facilitate games like Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, create my own Jeopardy, or play one of Jonathan Alsheimer’s Splat Review or Grudge Ball.
I also give myself permission to scrap all my test preparation plans at least one day during the week to watch a Laurel and Hardy short film, listen to some music, and play a game outside. Afterall, this is the week before standardized testing, and filling the dead air with some alive time sounds like a great idea. One thing I am certain: we may have to suffer through another school year of standardized testing, but I do not have to sacrifice the next three weeks in service to standardized testing. I will not.
Have a great week!
— Adrian
Resources
Want to listen to some radio programs from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s? This station broadcasts Old Time Radio shows 24/7 for FREE! Listen to Superman, X-Minus One, Tarzan, Philip Marlowe, Gunsmoke, Jack Benny and so many more.
Harnessing the Synergy Between Trauma-Informed Teaching and SEL | Edutopia
This Edutopia article features the work of Alex Shevrin Venet, from her first book, Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education. I also highly recommend her second book, Becoming an Everyday Changemaker. Marcus Luther and I read it together last fall. Here is a link to each chapter’s reflection and our final conversation with Alex.
What I appreciate most about this Edutopia article is how it connects Venet’s work on trauma to standardized testing, shifting from punishment to support.
How Teachers in This District Pushed to Have Students Spend Less Time Testing | EducationWeek
This article features a school district in Arizona that advocated for their students, eventually, reducing the amount of required standardized tests. I wish more school districts would follow this trend.
School of Engagement by Jonathan Alsheimer
Jonathan Alsheimer is a teacher I have been following for a while. He posts high-energy games that he plays with his students. His book, School of Engagement, is filled with all of the games he posts online. He primarily posts on TikTok and Twitter/X. Every review game I have tried with my students has been a success.
This podcast from Jennifer Gonzalez is a great listen before testing season begins. Her blog post, Standardized Tests Aren’t Going Anywhere. So What Do We Do?, is written by researcher Jenn Binis. Both the podcast conversation and blog post offers a different approach to solving the problems around standardized testing: moving away from all-or-nothing thinking and towards the idea of reducing harm.
Thank you for writing this. I love the metaphor. For me, it sometimes feels like they are even worse than dead air? Like polluted/toxic air?
Thanks for this. And for the articles to read up on. We are so so tired at our school of all the tests.