ASVAB

You're in a room with 75 freshman, sitting in rows in a lecture hall. It is the afternoon, after the students have had a fresh sugar injection from lunch. There is an above average clowner:serious student ratio. Upon arriving, the students are told they didn't "have to" come today. But, don't tell them you have to try to keep them there because then it counts for the school as a legal contact day. Tell the students we didn't know what to do with them while the Juniors took the ACT, and this was the counselor's uncreative answer this will help them be college and career ready.

Your job, give the students the military ASVAB test, which has no connection to their studies, is riddled with multiple choice questions the students don't know, and broken up into 8 grueling sections, with no break. Try not to show agreement with their complaints at being given a military test. Do not let the students take a bathroom break, get water, use their phones or iPods. The test mimics the stresses of military life. They don't give these in middle class suburban schools, those students get real college prep. Try not to cringe or speak out when the test administrators from the military give directions like an autistic 8 year old, but scream like a drill sergeant in a student's face when they start to act out, you're just an observer.

Work the room, use those relationships, build new ones to keep it all from exploding. Only two hours left. Hey, where's those other teachers that were supposed to be here too? Lesson planning.

But hey, it was worth it. Seven students in the freshman class passed, not.