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Dalton
Roberts |
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Any teacher can tell you that kids are capable of the zaniest answers to test questions. If they don’t know the correct answer, they do what they have seen adults do: they try to bull chip their way through it like dear old Dad when the trooper pulled him over. It worked one time with me when I was teaching 7th grade at North City School in Athens. I had explained how a one-celled amoeba, with no arms or legs, extends its protoplasm into a tentacle and uses that tentacle to transport itself from one place to another. I asked on a test, “How does an amoeba move around?” One of my students answered, “It just shakes the way it wants to go.” Any teacher who would not give that kid credit for such a creative answer should be whipped across the head and shoulders with a wet squirrel. It was clear to me he had the general idea even if he didn’t have the vocabulary to explain it. Someone sent me some test answers from kids that might not have fared as well had I been the teacher. In response to the question, “Where did we get the Ten Commandments?” one child answered, “Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get them. He died before he ever reached Canada.” On his paper I would have written, “Did the cyanide kill him?” Answering the question, “What were some of the Greek contributions to civilization?” one answer was, “The Greeks were a highly sculptured people. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth.” On his paper I think I would have noted, “I believe you mythed this one.” On a test challenge to tell something about the life and death of Socrates, this answer was given: “Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. He died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.” I think I would have given him credit. I, too, have almost died from an overdose of wedlock so I empathize with Socrates. If the kid has learned the danger of giving advice, he deserves special consideration. It may not get you killed but it will make people cross the street when they see you coming. Responding to a question about Julius Caesar, one child wrote, “Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him. Dying he gasped, ‘Tee hee, Brutus.’” While Julius was extinguished by the knife of a treacherous friend, as we all know, he should be given partial credit for getting Julius’ last words right. In an essay on Shakespeare, a student wrote, “The greatest writer of his day was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and was famous only for his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter.” I would give him a “B.” His basic information is right and I never have seen a lot of difference between Islamic and Iambic pentameter. On a question about John Milton, one kid wrote, “Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.” There is absolutely no way I could not give him credit for this jewel of insight. Yes, Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe but it is risky to teach this fact. It came out this way for one student: “Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper.” If I had been the teacher, at this point I would have walked to the principal’s office, turned in my credentials and resigned. That kid is simply not old enough to be educated on all those big words. The same is true with the kid who wrote, “Solomon had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.” It will not be me telling him the difference in a porcupine and a concubine.
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