On Giving the GED

by Donna Schoenkopf

It is 7:30 a.m. on the second Tuesday of the month, the morning of the monthly GED Test.

I have already done these things the day before:

• Sharpened all the pencils.
• Made a list of all the test takers and assigned them seating numbers and filled out surveillance sheets and other forms.
• Collected all the test taking materials—bubble-in answer sheets, erasable pens, colored scratch paper, calculators, my little pencil box containing scotch tape, Post-Its, personal pens and pencils, chalk, paper clips, Wite-Out, and the GED Test manual, and brought them from my office to the testing room.
• Turned the air conditioning on and set it to 78 degrees.

On the blackboard I have written my name in the upper left hand corner and in the center of the blackboard I have written:

Math – 90 minutes
Part I – 45 minutes
Part II – 45 minutes
Begin ___________
End ___________

On the long tables, which seat two test takers at each end, I have taped yellow Post-Its with the test taker’s name, seating number, and test form (there are three versions) at each designated seat. At each place I have laid out two sharpened pencils, an erasable pen, and a calculator.

I look around the room. I am new at this and am nervous about making sure every detail is covered. It is a job of many details, things that can gum up the works really hurt a GED test taker, if I don’t do everything correctly.

It’s a very pleasant room in an old elementary school building that has been abandoned and now is the adult learning center for the area. One wall has a tropical forest scene painted on it. It is full of large colorful birds and lush tropical plants, all painted in painstaking detail. There is a snake twined around the trunk of a tree. There is a very pink flamingo, looking out of place. There are parrots and macaws.

I look at it closely and imagine the teacher who worked on it. In my mind she is young and enthusiastic. She comes into her classroom during the summer and brings her paints and her book of bird illustrations and a little two-step ladder. She puts newspaper on the floor while she works and washes out her brushes in the sink when she’s done for the day. She thinks that this mural will brighten up everybody’s day and make them happy to be in school. I am certain her students have looked at that mural over the years, feeling themselves in the scene, happy to have a little break from the workaday world.

I love that teacher. I love that mural. And I know the test takers will relax just a little when they see it as they walk into the room.

I go over my crazy notes, not quite remembering what a few little phrases mean, but piecing together a plan in my mind. I open my GED Test manual and read the script I am supposed to deliver.

I am the new GED Chief Examiner. I feel like an imposter. I feel unprepared, but I plow on.

The door opens and the test takers come in. They are mostly young adults, early twenties, with a couple of older folks. I don’t have a full (that would be twenty) complement of souls; a little over half the available slots are taken.

GED passage rates are all over the map. Oklahoma’s correctional facilities, of all places, have a sky-high 90 percent pass rate. I don’t know how the students here today will do—a refresher course is the best possible predictor of success, and one is offered right here in the center. But we have test-takers right off the street as well. All the local tribes pay the testing fees for their members. I see a few in here today.

They walk in, some already with their cell phones out because they’ve been told that they mustn’t have them on their persons while taking the test. I think of the quiz show on which the contestant can “call a friend” for an answer. I wonder what friend they would call.

I say, “Good morning! Just walk around the room and find your names on the Post-Its on the tables. That’ll be your seat. And you can put your cell phones and purses here in this cupboard.”

They bring their cell phones and purses to the front of the room and put them inside and go back to their assigned seats.

It’s very quiet. There is no chattering. I can feel their intensity. I realize their brains are freezing up. My third grade teacher mode kicks in. I want to relax them so their brains will work. (When we are stressed or fearful, our brains step down into reptilian brains—the fight or flight syndrome. Higher level thinking is seriously impaired.) I say, “I know you will do well. If you see yourself doing well, if you have confidence, your brain will relax and you will do better.” It’s before the official test has started and I consider my remark as a legal one.

I begin to think about why they are here. Which of the people in the room has major learning disabilities? Which have personalities that just didn’t do well in a classroom? Who was the clown? Who was the quiet kid who just didn’t “get it”? Which person got into drugs and dropped out? Which person had crazy parents and evictions and an unstable home life and just couldn’t pull it together? Which of them were so in love they couldn’t hear the teacher? Which of them hated being in a room for eight hours a day with no respite, the outside world calling, calling them, because those walls were closing in on them? Which of them had always been tired in class because they never got much sleep, mother on the sewing machine all night to make a little money from the garment district, or the television blaring in the living room where they slept on the sofa? Who was bored with school because they were so bright and quick that they felt like they were in a living hell and just wanted out? Which of them moved a lot and missed key academic pieces that caused them to fail? Which of them never ate well, potato chips and candy and french fries being staples in their diet? Which of them just plain hated The System and all its rules and regulations because they were free spirits and bucked that System whenever they could?

All that doesn’t matter now. I go through my spiel, read directly from the manual about what is expected from them, add a final “Good luck,” officially printed right there in that manual.

Our computer system is broken so I haven’t scanned their answer sheets to preprint their names and social security numbers and other pertinents so we slowly bubble in all that. It takes a long time. They will have to do that for every subject.

At last it’s all completed. It’s time to begin the Math portion of the test. I point to the board with the info about its length and how it’s in two parts. I tell them that they have calculators for the first 45 minutes of the test, but then have to turn those in. They can go back to the first part after they complete the second, but without the calculators. I tell them that I will give them a ten minute warning when time is about to expire. I realize I have swamped them with information, and I can feel their brains freezing up again. But there’s nothing I can do. I look at the big clock on the wall with its sweeping second hand and I see all their faces turned toward it too, and I say, “You may begin.”

They open their test booklets. Their faces are serious. They start to read. They are facing their fears and there is no turning back. It’s like setting off into the woods. Bears may be behind every tree, a witch may grab them, it’s dark and scary. I feel it too.

Now I am mostly a proctor and a timekeeper. I look at the surveillance form I must fill out with times and subjects and topics and all. It is seriously mislabeled. I hate when that happens. Whoever thought of labeling the starting time as Out and the ending time time as In? Earlier, when I observed another GED examiner as part of my training and asked her what the Out and In meant, she nodded her head, acknowledging the absurd labels, and replied it meant what time I gave out the booklets and what time they were returned or brought in.

They need to hire me to make forms intelligible.

I sit and watch the clock grind slowly. I look at their faces. They are blank. There is no emotion on them. Very few of them do much calculating on their scratch paper. I get up and walk through the room once or twice, but they are far apart from each other and the room is so completely silent and they have different versions of the test. I see that they have no way to cheat and constantly walking around the room only distracts them and serves no purpose.

Finally it is time to give them their ten minute warning. They are so intent they don’t even look up. Then time is up. I see them relax. I collect the calculators. We all take a minute to gather ourselves, I write a new start time on the board, and we begin the second part of the test.

There is more writing on the scratch paper now, but not a lot. Forty-five grueling minutes later, time’s up. I collect everything, scratch paper (which will be shredded) and test booklets.

With not even five minutes between subjects, we begin the writing portion of the test. I can see some of them are already exhausted, but they say nothing. I explain that the first part of the writing test is about grammar and usage and is multiple choice and the second part of the test is an essay with a topic and they can use special scratch paper for an outline but that they must write their final draft on the answer sheet. We will all start and finish at the same time.

This test is two hours long. It is grinding. I see puzzlement on some of their faces as they read the grammar and usage questions. I see them reading the same things over and over again. This is hard for them.

I think about how language is especially hard for some of the people in the room. I know it’s because language is learned at your mother’s knee and if you belong to a segment of society that doesn’t use standard English in your everyday life, this test slams you. It is like taking a test in Mandarin Chinese. I think about how easy language was for me in school. I knew what was correct or incorrect because my family used standard English all the time. An accident of fate.

I think about a political science professor who told us that the group that controls the language controls the society. I think about Ebonics and Spanish being used constantly by my students in the school in the inner city in Los Angeles where I taught and how beautiful it was, expressive and lyrical, and how those two languages melted together and became something new. Ever try to teach a third grade inner city class about double negatives? No? Well, it is really, really hard because someone who says “I don’t have no paper” thinks it sounds just fine.

I think about a linguist on television a few weeks ago talking about how Ebonics will be the casual, daily language of everyone in another twenty years. I smile inwardly. That will even things out a bit.

(Don’t get me wrong. I was a good standard English teacher and knew they would need it to succeed in our society. My Latino and African American students did really well on standardized tests, but I also wholeheartedly accepted their use of their own special blend of languages. I told them they actually spoke several languages and were really lucky to have that in their bag of tricks.)

Finally, finally, the test is over. Everyone is drained. I can see the worry on their faces. They know they didn’t know everything on the test, maybe not even most it. But it’s lunch time now, 45 minutes to get to a hamburger joint for a bite to eat, and then back again. They gather their cell phones and purses and leave, some talking quietly. There is not a happy face among them.

Lunch is over. They all return on time, a little early, in fact. We begin again. They are not refreshed. As a teacher I know that after lunch students (and teachers) are sleepy and really tired. I always taught P.E. and art and music and read stories to them after lunch because it was impossible to do anything else. But the people in this room have to buck nature and their own bodies and minds and push ahead.

There’s Reading and Social Studies and Science on the list. On this part of the test they all start together but can finish and start the next section without waiting. All they have to do is raise their hands for the next test booklet.

They begin with Reading. As they read I casually look through the Social Studies test booklet because political science was my major in college and I was the the Judge Julian Beck Award winner, so it is of special interest to me. I am stunned. It is the most convoluted test imaginable. I am finding it extremely difficult to understand and am filled with anger at the unfairness of this thing. “Good luck, folks. This one’s a killer,” I think to myself.

The clock moves slowly. I see a hand go up after twenty minutes. I know its owner hasn’t been able to understand what he’s doing at this point. He’s given up and just bubbled in any old thing. I give him the next test. A few more hands go up for the next test. I know they are discouraged and just trying to finish and get out of here. More and more of them begin to finish before their official time is up. Two test takers hang on for dear life and use every last second to check and recheck their answers.

As each one leaves, first to last, I thank them for taking the test. I let them know in subtle ways that I know that the test is long and arduous and that they have been courageous and diligent and that I am proud of them. I see gratitude in their faces when I tell them that—gratitude for me recognizing what they’ve gone through.

The room is empty now. The birds still sit on their branches on the wall. The clock still moves silently, on and on. I collect all the scratch paper and booklets and pencils and pens and calculators and test booklets and stuff and move it in installments down the hall to my office, thinking about them.

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