I volunteered to proctor end of grade tests at the nearby middle school and greeted the mission with enthusiasm. My job was easy; as hall moniter I only had to escort children back and forth from emergency bathroom runs. Delighted at the prospect of time away from disruptions, I pulled a student-sized desk into the hall and journaled and edited without interruption .

But testing wasn't so great for the kids. Even though I was parked in the hall, I'd been clued into what was going on inside the testing rooms. The students were in for close to two hours of math testing with only three short three minute breaks. During those breaks they were allowed to strectch quietly by their desks. There was to be no noise louder than a calculator click.

It felt unnatural. For two hours there was not a shout, laugh, or locker slam. Occasionally, I heard a muffled teacher's voice issuing clipped directions. To make the situation even eerier, a brooding storm darkened the hall, only dim light came through the rectangular sky lights.

It made me pensive. What did these tests mean anyway? You take a child on one day of one year and give a test that's supposed to mean something? What if that child feels sick, or too shy to get up and go to the bathroom, or a bus put down first thing in the morning? This one morning's experience was supposed define a child, the scores engraved in files that follow a child until graduation. The test scores on that one arbitrary day might influence teacher pay, initiate a flurry of worried parent calls, and be abused by any number of people.

Bells rang, jarring the uncanny silence. A mistake, I mused. But the bells kept on. Seconds later, middle schoolers shuffled out of the room, another imposed silence interrupted by teacher whispers as students were herded against walls and directed to take the tornado-drill position - heads covered, bodies tucked, squished together. They spent twenty-five minutes that way. Middle school bodies don't fold easily, they don't stay in position well either, and fear made several of the girls break into tears. One student told me he had "the worst wegie of my life" for the entire time.

I had to wonder when they were finally released from these awkawrd poses, which torture was worse? The test provided by the state or the one furnishd by nature?