Over a month ago, I listed all the titles rumbling around/dando vueltas in my cabeza, and until now have been crazy busy. I hope this is the beginning of near daily posts. Tonight I am tackling # 5.
AP Readings start tomorrow and I am already installed on the 15th floor of the Millenium Hotel across from the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati, OH. My roommate, from NJ, had not shown up yet at 7:30 when I came down to the lobby (only place we have complimentary internet access).
Each year, an ever increasing number of high school students take Advanced Placement courses in a wide variety of subjects. ETS (Educational Testing Service) hires qualified readers to grade the 2.5 + million tests.
Spanish is one of the more popular areas. The last time I participated we (1100 graders) read over 150,000 exams. We work seven 8/hour days, always with the same group at an assigned table, following very strict guidelines and clear rubrics. It's fun to meet and share with interesting colleagues from around the globe.
Two years ago we were in San Antonio, TX , housed on a beautiful campus, Trinity University. It was getting late and no roommate had shown up yet. I had just been through the entire list of participants and noticed the names of some colleagues from NACFLA. Just then a knock on the door and the very one I was thinking about appeared after a loooong day of travel and many troubles. Later we discovered our suite mate was another 'nacflite' friend. We had a wonderful few days sharing our lives together and enjoying the sights of that unique city.
More about AP:
Have any of you seen the film Stand and Deliver? I chose to show it to my middle schoolers on the last day, unfortunately they were way too scattered to focus on the story, even though they had requested a movie.
It's the true story of an LA high school teacher, originally from Colombia, SA. He was determined to help his minority students succeed in life. It was his idea to teach them AP Calculus! He was strict, but very caring and dedicated, and they loved him. Their AP results were so outstanding that ETS concluded they had cheated. Formerly only a 2% had ever passed. To have an entire group get perfect scores was unprecedented. Their irate teacher fought for their right to prove themselves. They retook the test and, of course, passed with flying colors. His goal was accomplished when several were accepted into prestigious universities.
Stand and Deliver is such a good movie! But I can imagine the kids were almost literally bouncing off the walls on the last day of school. I doubt that even an action film would have kept their attention for the whole time either.
ReplyDeleteHope you have a good time during this intensely busy week. Any job is more fun when you have good people working along side!
Today was a busy day and I'm too tired to post tonight. It will probably be tomorrow evening before I do have time.
Don't feel rushed to send the books :-) Tina's in the process of sending me some I picked up on ebay and one I won on a blog giveaway a while back. But I will look forward to seeing what you got me :-) Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Ivan and Abram are going out to Sta. Rosa this weekend to work on the plumbing. Trying to get that right. Ivan thinks the pipe from the bath to the septic is broken (it's an old one of course and made of ceramic) so he plans to replace it with PVC pipe.
He'll be taking a few things out that we bought from our neighbor today. I'll blog all about it :-)