Test Anxiety: Hilarious horror stories from a retired testing coordinator

"These tests are just a snapshot of one day, of one way, of how they're doing on a certain test... The tests did not do what the tests were supposed to do."<p><br></p><p><strong>Featured guest: </strong></p><ul><li>Jane Mitchell, retired teacher<ul><li>After a 40 year career, Jane Mitchell retired as an intervention specialist from Dublin City Schools in 2013. She got her Bachelor's degree in Social Studies and English Education from the University of Illinois in 1973, then pursued her first Master's from the University of Iowa in K-12 Developmental Reading, but since she was already working with so many children with special needs at that point, she went for another Master's in Learning and Emotional Disabilities from the University of Iowa. In the years since, she has earned over a hundred credits from various universities to further her professional development. Mitchell has taught all grades from preschool through college in five different states, almost exclusively serving students with special needs. She spent the last 25 years of her career in Dublin Schools, serving as the testing coordinator at two different elementary schools in that time. She is a proud grandmother to five and mother to three. Two of her daughters are teachers; the third is the host of this podcast. <p></p> </li></ul> </li></ul><p><strong>In this episode:</strong></p>"Twice, I had kids get bloody noses on the tests and once, I had a kid throw up on the test. And when that happens, you have to stop testing because no one is going to be a good job while somebody is cleaning up barf, so the kids all have to take their break at that time while you clean up, but then the teacher, or in my case the testing coordinator because the teachers were so grossed out… would have to wear gloves and rewrite everything into a new test booklet, including all of the mistakes with spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and have it exactly the same—the only thing that’s better is the handwriting—and bag [the soiled test] up and mark it as hazardous wa