Midterms Week

Today is the last day of midterms week here at school. Coming from a high school that never did midterms or cumulative finals, I can't really relate to what my students are going through. Obviously, I experienced midterms and finals while in college but I also only had to worry about four or five finals for one semester. My students have a midterm in each and every single class, eight to be exact.

For being ESL students and some of them pretty young for this sort of intense testing (even my 7th graders take the midterms), they are doing exceptionally well. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to take a two hour long test in a language that is not your native tongue. All too often I forget how exceptional my students are for this very fact- I think I would have a nervous breakdown if I had to take a physics midterm all in Chinese.

Needless to say, teachers and students alike are all pretty happy today to see midterm week over. For students, the reasons are obvious (no more tests!), and for teachers it will be nice to actually teach again! For the past four days I have just been standing in a room proctoring one test or another which is really boring. Bring on the math again!