Enduring the CSET

First of all, test taking requires skill and I do not think it is the best way to assess one’s academic ability and knowledge, let alone their professional demeanor. I want to be an elementary school teacher. I feel I am smart enough (hello, I have a college degree – those do not grow on trees!), I also have the intuition and patience it takes to commandeer mass amounts of students at one time. From talking to different people, that is not innate to most adult, college educated individuals. Most people find other people’s kids annoying and would rather lose an arm then be stuck with 30 of them for 6 hours a day.
So why take these review tests? I mean, you should have had a grasp of general education when you graduated high school. Not only do I want to teach, and have to take the tests, (the CBEST as well!) I have to pay fees for each of them! What craziness! My family already paid my tuition and I graduated with honors – wasn’t that enough? The CSET cost over $200! It’s like I’m paying to be tortured by snobby Academics. Someone is making money off the fact that California needs teachers and taking it from poor grad-school hopefuls, like myself.
Okay – enough of being on my prissy soap box. This morning started at 6am. I made sure to have eggs and coffee and a shower. I was out the door with plenty of time to get to SFSU dressed in the recommended layers and soft-soled shoes. I go by SFSU’s exit on the 280 south everyday on my commute to work, but today I chose to follow NES’s driving directions. BAD IDEA! So I stayed on the 101 south and never found the 19 Avenue Exit and ended up in Burlingame! I was beyond mortified. I needed to be there at 7:30am on the dot. So I get off at one exit and could not find the 280 north only the 280 south. On the freeway still going south and agitated I call Chris, who wakes up to talk to me, now in tears. The next exit leads me to magically find North and I get to the campus right at 7:30! So I am running to the parking ticket machine to pay for my spot and one machine spits out my fiver, but, thank the LORD, the other machine takes it just fine.
Off to the races – now I am running around SFSU trying to find the HH building on my printed out map. When I get there there is no evidence of the CSET taking place. Looking at my test ticket thingy I totally misread the building and now running for building HSS.
Praise God, they let me in and I think the only people annoyed was everyone taking the test. I am usually one of those organized early birds looking down on the late, messed up life, kind of people. J Today I was a messed up person, but I got there and took the test!
The test in and of itself was complete “bollocks” (or “waste of time” for children under the age of 18 – my husband is polluting my vocabulary with British swear words!). I think I understood most of the questions. But the last written answer on Subtest II totally threw me and I thought the chart was not clearly marked. At first I wrote the NES test correctors a piece of my angered mind as my answer! And then after I calmed down while taking Subtest III, I had plenty of time to go back, erase my original “answear” and give the problem a shot. I hope they give credit for intelligent almost-the-right answers because I had forgotten the formula for probability. Bummer. But I was glad I could erase my previous written tirade about their ridiculous test and give it an intelligent try
Man, I hope the five hours of headache inducing test taking gains me a career in teaching other people’s kids.