AP Testing

There’s a trend going around with AP testing, at least at our school. But I shouldn’t even write that–I see the trend everywhere online. And, no surprise, I’m not a big fan.
These last two weeks of school were filled with AP tests. We give a ton of them, it makes our school look pretty good (based on number taken/number of graduating seniors), and kids can pass those tests and get some early college credit. Why on Earth am I about to go on a rant here?
Here’s why. Students don’t care. They’ve taken the class for 150 days, paid money for a test, had extra time and effort from pretty much every teacher to prep them for the actual test, had shirts printed out that represent their subject, get fed by the teachers on the day of, and shared ideas back and forth online and in chat rooms. Yet with all this preparation, students act as if the test is some alien form that no one could possibly comprehend.
About half of the students think they passed the test. This is amusing (sort of) because many of the students who claim they did well, didn’t; while students who think they did poorly, didn’t. Kids pass. Kids fail. Happens every year.
But there’s a new trend happening this year. Thank goodness for the Internet so I can see all the cool kids out there taking the L. If you are old and don’t know what it is to “take an L,” it’s not a big stretch. It means you’ve taken a loss. That you’ve lost. That something has defeated you. That any shot you think you had is now gone because that L has reared its ugly head.
Some kids take the L before the test even starts. They say things like, “I’m taking that L,” and quickly throw away their whole year in an AP class. The worst part of all this is the trendiness of the quick quit. Wait, there’s a worse part–the kids take pictures of themselves, finger L on their foreheads, outside the testing facility immediately after taking the test (or L).
This is new behavior, because trying is hard.