Last night we loaded up the bike, the dogs, and the dog trailer and headed over to Houston for the big Moonlight Ramble. We met up with hundreds of other cyclists at Saint Arnold's Brewery for a costume and bike contest, and then we hit the road at midnight on the most challenging ride ever! It was challenging for me because I haven't been training, and dragging Bill and Bob in the trailer added at least 50 pounds to my load.

We went up and down a few freeway interchanges and I literally thought I had downshifted to the last gear on a couple of hills. Other people zoomed by me as I struggled to pedal my load of dogs up the hill, and I was starting to worry about my Trek bike since I haven't taken it in for a service in at least a year. We made it through the rough part, at least initially--but not everyone. Some lady on a pink street bike with lights blinking all over the wheels wiped out right in front of me and went over the curb divider on one of those little uphill struggles. 

I hated to see that, but not as much as I hated to see those little hills. Last year was literally the easiest ride ever, level road, and it was a short ride too, only about 10 miles. This year was quite the workout...I rode 16 miles in 1 hour and 40 minutes and that includes a break at Houston Community College. 

I did get behind the main group of riders, and I did decide to take the short route. The short route and losing sight of my fellow cyclists meant that I actually got lost on the way back. This not only added distance to my ride, but it also added a ton of anxiety. I was somewhere on Canal Street in an unfamiliar area, and literally nobody was around except one other lost cyclist dressed in a skeleton mask and a creepy white onesie. 

I never did get back on the right route because I couldn't keep up with the guy in the skeleton mask because of the dog trailer. I ended up running into one of the ride organizers on Jensen Street and he told me how to get back to Saint Arnold's Brewery. He politely told me what to do, but I felt like he was secretly amused by my predicament.

The Wonderful Beer Garden at Saint Arnold's! They really welcomed us with red carpet service!

Such a cute, scary couple! ❤️👻

I really wasn't going to go to last night's Moonlight Ramble, but my son and his friend volunteered to help me with all of the equipment and the dogs, and they scolded me for "being bummed out." I am so lucky to have such wonderful young people in my life--they grabbed their skateboards, and away we went. It was a fun night that I will never forget! Thank you Houston!

Bob and Bill waiting to ride!

This bike played music!!!

I'm not sure, but I think this group won a costume prize!

I've been working on a paper that examines the effects of standardized testing on secondary students. I'm most interested in essay responses and how they interfere with an expressivist pedagogy. I'm trying to argue that even though an essay prompt might have good intentions, it still caters to what Freire would call "the banking model of education" because the test is more constructivist--it doesn't allow students to display the ability to write in an authentic genre because the test itself becomes a genre. 

For example, in the state of Texas, ninth grade writers are asked to compose an expository piece inside of a box on 26 lines. Teachers in schools with socioeconomic deficits really stress over this piece of writing, and it can be taught throughout the school year. While students are being forced to respond to a prompt in a 26 line essay "that explains something" they are missing out on the joys of composing authentic, expressivist writings that explore current events, inner peace, self-exploration, or other topics of interest. 

For example, in one extremely poor urban school students were given a state prompt that asked them to explore and explain why it is important to trust someone. Most of these students had never trusted anyone and with good reason. In fact, someone that was trusting was considered foolish. The neighborhood consisted of mostly public housing and crime was a part of every student's life. Asking them to write about "trust" was a completely inappropriate topic, a topic that was basically foreign to them.

If English teachers are cultural workers with a mission to humanize and teach empathy, then how did they become aligned with this form of oppression? Is the energy, effort, and time wasted on teaching students to write to a standardized test really an act of oppression?

I think that Paulo Freire would say that we have lost our way, and that we have become the oppressor. If "oppressors are manifestations of dehumanization" as Freire says they are, then does the modern English teacher fit this mold? Freire makes a distinction between "systemized education" and "educational projects." Projects involve the student, while systemized education is a top down form of management that disregards the problem with oppression. 

Typically, standardized tests are equated with power, both financial and political, as profits are made and student needs are ignored. The standardized test is a neoliberal and far right conservative manifestation that touts educator accountability but fails to allow the pursuit of a problem-solving style pedagogy. Freire teaches us that:

"In sum: banking theory and practice, as immobilizing and fixating forces, fail to acknowledge men and women as historical beings; problem-posing theory and practice take the people's historicity as their starting point."

Why not understand the origins of our students? When people become "aware of their incompletion" then education becomes an "ongoing activity." Standardized testing symbolizes an oppressive barricade, a box much like the one the students are forced to write in. The test becomes an education completed, or in some cases it becomes an education never accomplished. 

Either way, both outcomes send our students the wrong message.