Reader # 72634

I arrived home today. I am so tired, I didn't post last night, although there's a lot to talk about. I'll catch up over the next couple of days.

I was reader # 72634 (that's my ETS employee #). I bubble that number onto every scantron, to identify myself as the grader. Every scantron corresponds to 25 AP exams. I graded just shy of 2000 exams last week. I am wiped out. My brain hurts.

Adults remember certain numbers. I still know my childhood home phone number from Brooklyn, from the house we lived in from when I was 5 until I was 17. I suspect I'll remember 72634 just as long. It was my number last year, this year, and for forthcoming years.

As for the AP exam itself, I am generally pleased with the rubric. Of course, I have no idea how the multiple choice questions went (I'll never see those), but I really feel that this year's crop of open ended questions was not only good for Hopewell, but the nuances of the rubric favored my teaching strengths. Essentially, what I am saying here is that I emphasized the right things, and the students learned them.

We finished the job, by the way. We were dismissed from reading at 3:30 yesterday (Thursday), 90 minutes early. I was dragging badly at the end. It's pretty amazing, we had to grade 6 questions on 120,000 exams, and no exam could be read more than once by the same person (essentially, 6 people graded every exam). It is an operational marvel. I am merely a factory line worker.

I spent a week with hundreds of the top high school statistics teachers in the country, and come back armed with new tools and strategies to employ next year. I spent time with the textbook authors, and many young college professors. It was a week of total statistics immersion. I am dizzy.

When I am at the reading I miss my family, I wonder what's going on at school, and the provided food is terrible and ties my stomach up. My neck hurts from reading all day long. My hand hurts from bubbling scantrons. I don't sleep well. I make a couple of dollars, but nobody would do this for the money. Honestly, at this point, I can't imagine not doing it.