For Thursday, December 10, 1998 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 697 words

MegaBrains II

I have changed or discarded virtually every lesson plan I've ever created in my 14 years of teaching. I will probably continue to do so. I don't do this because the lessons are necessarily bad. I just get restless, and I'm always looking for something better.

Each year my class chemistry is different and the times keep changing. These factors alone help shift the direction of our studies.

Even among the constants -- reading, writing, listening, speaking, thinking -- I am annually tinkering with my approaches. I suspect most teachers do the same.

However, there is one thing that I have never changed, not since my first year as a student teacher at Hayward High back in '84. That one thing is my spring final exam: The MegaBrains Canned Food Company job application.

It took me the better part of a college year to put this 45-question test together as a project. It combines 30 written and 15 auditory questions that overlap each other amidst a flurry of distracting sound effects into a timed exam that has never been finished. It requires students to multi-task multi-step questions at top speed for 45 minutes. All the while, a mad medley is tugging at their attention spans. When the buzzer sounds, and it's always too soon, pens and pencils are hot and the tests are incomplete.

It's a microcosm of the average adult day.

Actually, the idea sprang from a management test I once took for AT&T. That unmanned test involved a cassette tape and a written exam. From time to time a voice on the otherwise silent tape would say "Stop and [do something else]."

I got to a point where I was working on three or four questions at one time. The hectic pace actually made the test exciting. They were measuring their employees' ability to overlap. I was having fun, and learned only later the tremendous value of being able to juggle on the job.

The sound effects are my addition. They add another level of complexity. They also add a note of levity to a potentially stressful barrage of questions. I collected the sounds over a six-month period from rare recordings at the Berkeley Public Library, off the radio, TV, record player, answering machine. I bought albums of sound effects. I then threaded them to fit one side of a 90-minute tape.

The questions are general knowledge, for the most part. A person could walk in off the street and earn a pretty good score. It takes the right amount of quick wits, good mnemonics, organization, and calm concentration.

Students enjoy the test. It pushes them to their limits in fun way, and teaches them a new skill. I have students who come back year after year and take the final again, hoping for a better score. One fellow returned from college to take it.

Here's where the plot twists. Back in 1995 my van was stolen out of the Black Angus parking lot in Vallejo. Inside was the master copy of my MegaBrains test. In a snap a decade-old classroom tradition was taken from me.

I continued the next few years with a backup copy, but the duplication had muffled the sounds. Also, the tape was ten years old and degrading fast.

I dreaded the thought of recreating it. All those intricate sounds and delicate timings took months to adhere. However, I knew I had to do it eventually, or let go of my only constant. So, this Thanksgiving break, thanks to the miracle of computers, sound editing software, and an extremely understanding wife, I have created a brand new MegaBrains job application -- Service Release II on CD.

Only the sounds are different. The questions, for the most part, have remained the same. I added a few new twists out of restlessness, and to stay a step ahead of the kids, who have been growing quicker every year, but I tried to maintain the original flavor.

The new version is five minutes longer and has two bonus questions. I can't wait to try it out on my classes in January. I know they are as eager as I am for finals to arrive.