Sitting at a brown wooden desk that was bolted to the floor, in front of me was the Metropolitan Reading Test…my first run-in with a standardized test. Today, more than 50 years later, they are into the 8th edition of what are now called, "The Metropolitan Achievement Tests…" For me, these have always measured….ah…under-achievement. Likely the same test…just a different classroom. Now the desks are no longer bolted to the floor.
Staring at the front page of the booklet - holding my #2 pencil in my right hand and alternating my gaze back and forth from the booklet to the empty oval circles on the answer sheet - my eyes started to water and burn. While I fought to hold back tears, Mrs Himber (a short, stocky woman with a bun - an archetypal elementary school teacher) stands next to my desk. When she saw that I was crying, she asked me to accompany her out into the hall.
First, she informed me that this was absolutely against test rules, god, country and the board of education. We had, after all, been warned that we would not be permitted to go the bathroom or leave our seats for any reason. Then she sternly asked me why I was disrupting the class by crying. "I have never seen such behavior from a fourth grade BOY!!!" she said sternly.
Choking the words out, I told her that I could not read the instructions - that I knew she'd said there were sample questions, but I could not read them either. She was shocked and incredulous. She told me that she had never had anyone in HER fourth grade class who could not read even the sample questions. She looked to see how I might be tricking her and/or trying to get out of taking the test, which she insisted every fourth grader in every school in all the New York boroughs was taking precisely at the same time. I'm sure that, much like me, they had been told to stay in their seats, and that their feet were to remain bolted to the floor. Mrs. Himber made it clear that she had already made a big concession bringing me out into the hall, and was not going to stand for any more nonsense. She told me I should get back into my seat and take the test like everyone else. Actually, everyone else wasn't taking the test. Everyone was staring out the door listening to our conversation and snickering. Fortunately, she did not pull my ear or shake me….
Several weeks later, Mrs. Himber decided to break the rules again. She brought me up to her desk with the test scores in front of her, pointed to my name at the very end of the list that included the results of all five boroughs (and perhaps all of humanity) and informed me that the only thing I got credit for was that I wrote my name at the top of the page.
Mrs. Himber was clearly stunned. I think she still half believed that this was some scheme on my part to get out of work. Eventually, however, after consulting with the principle and the guidance counselor, she decided to take the very unusual step of having the very best reader in our class ...Gail Goldberg…."help" me learn to read.
Soon first grade primers were delivered to our class, and each day Gail would read to me about a girl named Jane and Spot the dog. Needless to say I left the fourth grade as I had left the third - completely illiterate.
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