Revising the Pedagogical Form: Test-Oriented Teaching and Learning

I walked into Eddy’s1 classroom at just after 7 a.m. on a Monday morning. I thanked him for seeing me before class; for taking the time out of a busy day, week, and month to talk about his professional life and practice. We spent the next few moments standing on chairs, opening one large white-framed window after another, until we had let in enough cool morning air that I had to put my jacket back on. “By midmorning, it’ll be very warm in here, and other than lunch, my guys won’t be going anywhere today.” When I asked why, he told me, “all testing all the time; math and science until the end of the week, that’s it.” We had dinner that evening, the temperature had dropped again, and I asked if he had spent the day inside as he suspected. He had, and would do the same for the remainder of the week.