Testing Week Over

I should be writing about how overjoyed I am, but I have come to love testing week. Here's why:

1. Unlike the week of testing years ago, I've had the opportunity to work with my students, condition them for this week, and prepare them with test taking strategies. As a result, they're a joy to be with.

2. I get the same class all day, so it's kind of like working in elementary school.

3. The students and I aren't being smothered by the burden of prescribed curriculum. We get to do cool activities that nourish other parts of their intellects.

4. Re: number 3: When I write "cool activities," I didn't actually mean testing itself. Although it is cool to fill in bubbles on a scantron, and show how well you've learned how to take tests.

5. We get ice cream.

6. We get to attend a cool assembly where the staff and students are brainwas- er...pumped up for testing week.

7. We get to see, for the first time in months, that select group of teachers who are highly valued on campus. Since they are busy with other things, they don't get to teach a homeroom/testing class of their own. This is the week they walk the halls, and duck their heads into our classes and offer to be of assistance. I'm sure one of them will be visiting my class soon.

8. Although it's Friday, and the day is half over.

9. And 7th grade isn't actually testing today.

10. Not that I needed any assistance.

11. After the students leave, we get to participate in staff meetings. This is where the real behind the scenes work of teaching is done. We meet by department, roll up our sleeves, and plan for next year. This involves combing through a fifty page document called our Plan for High Priority Schools. It is the masterful plan for turning the school around. It details all of the ways we will work with our students next year to get them up to at least Basic in all subjects. It will be choc full of new strategies.

12. Well, so far I haven't come across any new strategies, but I'm told it's a work in progress.

13. It's generally a time of refreshment for students and teachers alike.

I Miss Victoria

Once upon a time, there was a place that I went to when I wanted to feel beautiful. Its portals were crafted from dark, glossy, burgundy wood. They were the gateway into another world - a world of beauty, in which the sounds of the London Symphony Orchestra drifted about me like a delicate garment. My fingers would brush the lightest, softest fabrics. In my imagination there is the subtle fragrance of Spring Rain, although I can't be sure this was so: I often visited Crabtree & Evelyn first. And while I may have spent my afternoon running from place to place, that stopped when I walked through the door.

"Darling, but what is the hurry?" she would whisper as I held a creamy rose camisole. "We do not rush here...beauty never rushes." And so I would slow down, allowing my senses to take everything in. The matching chocolate satin brassiere and panties. The sheer black nylons. The soft cotton nightgown. Ah, the demi cup bra in pale rose. As soon as I decided to try it on, one of her muses would appear beside me, a measuring tape around her neck.

Visits to Victoria's Secret were uplifting, but that doesn't fully encompass what they meant to me. The imaginary Victoria was the emblem of sophistication: well read, mysterious, very sensuous. She made me want to be better than I was. She didn't make me feel less. She made me feel more.

And when I couldn't visit, there was her catalogue: colorful, glossy pictures of curvy models like Frederique donned beautiful lingerie in idyllic settings. Always tasteful. I would save each issue until the next one came. After I had my first child, my browsing took on a more wistful approach. I collected them as inspiration until I could once again fit into the fashions. Then came child number two, and visits to Victoria's Secret became less frequent, although I would still purchase a nightgown here, and the CD music collection there, in a modest effort to keep her a part of my life. By the time child number three appeared, I am sorry to say I had lost all contact with Victoria. I was too busy, too scattered to give her much thought. I don't think I even noticed when the catalogue stopped showing up. It just...disappeared.

And so did she.

I am sorry to say that for a long time I really didn't give her much thought, until the day I arrived unannounced for a visit and discovered that an impostor had taken her place. This chit angled herself in lewd contortions, her countenance sporting the half-lidded pout favored by gentleman's magazines. There were bins where one could purchase four panties for $20. Bony mannequins sporting thongs were posed, adjacent to polka dotted stuffed pooches in the storefront windows. Had the merchandise been displayed in an unmarked warehouse, it would have been impossible to tell it apart from that of Frederick's without checking the label. A wretched imitation, this Victoria had never read a great novel. She'd never heard of Mozart. She didn't know sensual; she didn't even seem to have the intelligence to grasp subtle. She was Eliza Doolittle before, although I rather credit Eliza with more class.

Where did she go? And who shall we call into account for her untimely disappearance? The consumer? Culture? Was there a generation in there that decided declasse and vulgar were going to be the provocative ideal? I missed it.

Oh Victoria, please come back! I miss you and I know I can not be the only one. You once filled a role in the life of a woman. You were sensual. You were beautiful. You would have been an inspiration to my daughters.

The other day I passed what was at one time my favorite store. I couldn't help it; I glanced up into the storefront, to a larger than life portrait of a woman who appeared to be in a relatively pleasurable state. Her lips were open in a in a dumfounded pout, her eyes were half closed, and she was spilling out of her bra. I wondered for the millionth time if anyone has explained to the CEO the difference between provocative and pretty versus embarassing. I glanced away in time to catch a little girl, about four, walking with her family from the opposite direction. She was staring at the storefront with the kind of intensity I see in children when they are completely focused on some activity. Teachers try to induce this state in the classroom because this is when the brain creates new neuropathways, hence learning takes place.

I looked away.