Proud to be a nerdy Asian

Me the nerd in high school. I was a junior when we went to Washington to compete at the National FHA Convention

A recent comment made by one of my good friend, Peu reminded me how after all these years I still have not escaped my image of “the nerd”. She was in the middle of  telling me  about her struggle in a Literature class she was taking at the college when she paused and said, ” Hey, I bet this class would be easy for you because you were so smart when we were in high school”.  It has been over 14 years since I graduated, but yet people still remembers me as the “smart” one, the nerdy one as my friends fondly remembers.  I guess I fit the profile of what they describe as nerdy characteristics:  studies  a lot, always completes assignment, and gets good grades. 

Because of this image of me being smart and nerdy, people would love to sit by me in class because they wanted to cheat off of me especially in my history class. I can still remember, Sammy who almost fell out of his chair trying to see my test answers over my hunching shoulders. I guess once he realized that he didn’t have any x-ray vision, he would do the next best thing which was pretend to be elastic man and stretch his neck  over my shoulder in a vain attempt to get those answers!

Another of my ‘cheater” friend is Jackie who by far has no shame when it comes to cheating.  She didn’t beat around the bush, or waste time trying to be discreet about cheating off of my test.  Oh, no she didn’t make a pretense of trying to pass the test on her own , she straight out told me to give her the answer.  After that she would have the nerve to ask if I had a quarter or a dollar, like I would give that to her even though I wouldn’t hand over my answers! Okay… sometimes I did give her money because I felt sorry for her.

In retrospect( now that I’m older and wiser) being a nerd in high school was not so bad even when my little sister would make fun of my extra-curricular activities. Yeah, she would laugh and  teased me about being the president of the Future Homemakers of America, Home Economics Related Occupation Club, but she did it goodnaturely.  I have no shame being the head of that club because my team went to national competition for our community service projects because we placed first at state and earned our spot.  Yes, I acted too mature and serious for a high schooler, but that was part of who I was and still am to a certain extent. 

I am a proud nerdy Asian even though I consider myself average in intellect.  However, if my high school friends still would like to hold that image of a smarty pants, then who am I to persuade them to think differently!:)

Cheating on the AP exam

As a teacher, I am always paranoid about following rules and regulation when it comes to formal testing like the AIMS test or any type of test that we have to give to our students that is state mandated. Recently, I read an article about a high school in California who was accused of cheating on the AP exam.  I was shocked that the some of the kids were able to cheat on this exam because at a conference I attended  in California we talked about this.  I can not believe that some of the proctors were sleeping, reading, or left the room.  What they should have been doing was walking around the room and monitoring the students and making sure that they had nothing on their desk except their test and writing utensils. 

In the article it talks about how some kids confessed to cheating by texting the answers to each other.  Because of this allegation of cheating, all  385 student’s score has been nullified.  It is true that it is unfair to the kids who are innocent. However, I have to agree with the  zero tolerance policy  that is mandated by the College Board and the Educational Testing Service when it comes to this issue.  If the College Board gives in and reinstate the scores for the innocent party then other kids might get the wrong message which is, it’s okay to cheat because you will only get your hands slapped!  Like I said it is unfair to those innocent kids who abided by the rules, but it is necessary to keep the integrity of the test.  Shame on the cheaters for “punishing” the other students!

A couple of weeks ago, at my AP conference, my instructor, was telling us about how the Educational Testing Service ( the company who writes  the AP Tests) spends millions of dollars to guard the integrity and secrecy of the AP test.  I find it ironic that a couple of kids from California has been able to show how easy it is to cheat on the test with the help of technology. 

Why do kids feel it necessary to cheat on test?  It is sad that a handful can ruin the validity of the test scores.

If you would like to read the article click on this link: http://chronicle.com/news/article/4814/students-and-parents-in-calif-protest-after-ap-test-scores-are-canceled