By Charlie Nadler
At a competitive school like Irvington, where rather high marks are generally considered to be average, it is natural that such an attitude can translate into stress and anxiety over grades amongst many students. As such, students tend to take many different rigorous courses in which tests are given often. This would lead to students having multiple tests in one day, which naturally leads to hair-losing stress. The method the school employed to combat this was the “testing day”.
“Testing days” worked by limiting a certain subject (e.g. science classes) to two days in which a teacher of that subject could administer a test, making it very rare for multiple tests to be administered in a single day to students. This, of course, was a very popular policy among students who did not need to cram for multiple tests in a single night. However, with the advent of the new block schedule, testing days have been tossed. What gives?
There is, of course, a logistical reason why this is the case and that is because classes now only meet every other day. With this in mind, it would be impossible for the administration to tell English teachers “You can only give tests on Tuesdays and Fridays” because only half of the total students taking that class will actually attend it that day. Ok, one may say, so the problem is solved? Since classes only meet every other day, is it actually necessary for testing days to still be in place? Not so fast.
Multiple classes still meet on a given day. A student may have their English class first thing in the morning, and then their science class next, so the opportunity for a multiple-test day is still plausible. Therefore, to avoid further hair loss among the student body, it is important to reinstitute a system where multiple tests a day are avoided.
