(3/2007) - One of the great challenges and delights of my teaching career at Miss Hall’s has been the opportunity to teach Advance Placement European History. It is a course worthy of its daunting reputation and the effort it demands. This past winter, having taught AP Euro here for the required three years, I applied and was invited to become a reader for the Educational Testing Service, the group that grades national AP exams for the College Board.

Perhaps the cynic would put it like this: “Who would want to be part of a group that reads 270,000 essays over the course of a long, hot week at the start of summer vacation?” After reading in Lincoln, Nebraska this past June, I know the answer: “I do.” Reading is an intense, demanding, rewarding experience, one that brings hundreds of talented high school teachers and college professors together, often thousands of miles from home.

There is tremendous camaraderie and tradition at the readings. I was a rookie this past year, what the other readers affectionately call “an acorn,” a reference to the College Board’s symbol, which used to adorn all newbies’ nametags. It was a pleasure for me to see old friends across the country greet each other at this annual teachers’ mecca, and when I go back to read again this year – to Fort Collins, Colorado – I’ll have a number of friends to greet, too. As a teacher, I always felt there was sort of a mystique about “the readers,” those anonymous scholars who pore over student essays by the hundreds, handing out the sort of judgment that will make or break a student’s quest for college credit or permission to forego a survey course in college. In joining the readers, I’ve unraveled the mystery.

You might think that being a reader would make me a better teacher, but I would say that the opposite is much more true. Because I love to teach, I’m a better reader. And while I have acquired some tricks and sharpened my understanding of the process, the simple truth is that good teaching seems to come from my desire to be a good teacher, not from my experience with the College Board. I can’t wait to go back and read again, but there’s nothing as satisfying as a good day in front of a class.