am i smarter than a 5th grader?

for whatever reason ross and i have watched this show 'are you smarter than a 5th grader' the past 2 weeks. aside from annoying theme music, overly dramatic people, awfully smug children, jeff foxworthy, and excessive commercial breaks...we find this show entertaining for some reason. i think we enjoy knowing so many more answers than the contestants that it makes us feel good about ourselves. i do think, however, that their selection of contestants in not equally weighted. we have yet to see a professional like a doctor, lawyer, computer programmer on the show...one could argue they don't need more money, but i'm just saying that i think they would do well. but mostly i would like to see a teacher on the show, like a 5th grade teacher, because i'm sure she would blast that game apart. but i guess it wouldn't be as 'entertaining' if the contestants were 'smarter' than a 5th grader. if, of course, you are silly enough to believe that answering random questions from a school textbook correctly makes you 'smarter' than another person.

i however have been engaging in my own reality show of 'am i smarter than a 5th grader' the past month as i've been studying to take the TExES exam to be 'highly qualified' to teach 4th-8th grade mathematics. this requires me to have mastery over certain competencies that i shall be required to teach students on the TAKS test. Some sample questions are provided, but not really enough to practice with. So I looked online and found that you can take released TAKS tests for all ages here. so beginning with 3rd grade and going up through 11th grade, i took all the TAKS math tests. i sighed with relief when the 3rd grade test was no problem and was somewhat pleased when i was able to complete all tests easily in less than 1 hour each. i'm not sure if the excitement was justifiable, as i am a college graduate, but nonetheless at least i do know how to do what i am to teach students to do. of course, doing it well and teaching it well are far from the same.

i also took the 8th grade social studies just to see, and was pleased to execute that one flawlessly as well. try them out! it will let you know if 'you're smarter than a 5th grader', according to the state of Texas.