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  I really like to know how things work. Everything. It is a curiosity that has only grown as I have grown older. I like to ask  questions to anyone that knows something that I do not. Why are you digging a hole there? How does that machine work.  What  does that instrument do? Who is that? When is this going to be done? Why can’t I do that? How long will that take?   What  can I do to help? Who knows the information I would like to know? When are can we meet up for coffee? Not only that,  but I touch everything. I want to know how it feels. How it turns. How heavy it is. People that know me well are always telling  me to stop. Why should I stop? It is how my works and I have learned this.       Our brains are fascinating. I want to know just as much about how our brains work as I do about how the excavator, digging  that hole, works. A few years back I was given the opportunity to take a class on how trauma affects the ...

  Standardized tests: what are they good for? Absolutely nothing (did you sing the song in your head?). But wasting money,  time, and sanity. I get why our country implemented strict standardized testing. The United States has fallen behind in both  reading and math with much of the first world counties and we wanted a way to improve our standing. Of course they would  come up with testing as a way to hold our students, teachers, and schools accountable. There is a long history of testing in the  United States, but it really took hold with the passing of “No Child Left Behind” in 2002. This policy “mandated annual testing  in  reading and math (and later science) in grades 3-8 and again in grade 10,” (Encyclopedia Britannica). This law had an  outrageous requirement “that 100% of U.S. students be “proficient” on state reading and math tests by 2014,” (Encyclopedia  Britannica). Even if I wasn’t in education and knew little about testing, an...