A TAKSing week in the state of Texas

It's TAKS week. The last of the big TAKS weeks. No, not Tax week. That was two weeks ago. This is the one that causes undue stress on some of the hardest working people in the state. Maybe that still doesn't specify enough. This the week in which a majority of the standardized tests in the state are administered to students in public schools.

It's quite a difference from a normal school day. Which is one of many problems with the testing system. On a normal day, the students arrive at school and socialize until time for class to start. Then that finish up the socializing as they enter their classrooms. The teachers say their good mornings, and everything settles into the normal daily routine. This week, however, The students will come to school and be in a holding pattern beyond normal start time. The bells are turned off, and announcements over the PA system are silenced. The hallways are deathly quiet, as are the classrooms. No interaction is allowed until all students have completed their tests. These testing days are drastically different than the normal school day.

Therein lies a problem. How are students supposed to perform their best when they are taken completely out of their routine? It seems as though the best strategy would be to put them through the same paces as any other day and the answers would come naturally. That works in physical training. A basketball player who shoots 100 free throws each day trains his muscles to memorize the movement that makes the ball go through the hoop. A football player will wrap his arms around a tackle-dummy and take it to the ground all week in practice so that during a game he makes a tackle without even thinking about how to do it.

Answer sheets full of bubbles that have to be colored in? Multiple choice spelling tests? A perfect score of 2430 instead of 100? Really? Does that help a student perform at her best?  But our great state has the solution! We rename the test every few years. We change the way schools are graded on the results. We require the test to be passed in order for a student to be promoted to the next grade.

I think there is a bigger lesson to be learned from atop this soapbox. There is a lesson about life and how we live it. I hear people say, and see people type, that we should "live every day as if it's your last." I couldn't agree more. But when I hear these words, I think of the athletes in training between games. "Live every day as if it's game day." "Live every day as if it's test day." Live in a way that when you're tested, tried, judged, it will be just another day. You do it like you've always done it. Read about the Good Samaritan again (Luke 10). Which person will have the easiest time passing the test. The BIG test. "Live every day as if it's the last." Then when you have to give an answer, it will come naturally. Now those are words to live by.