Streamwood juniors get break before tests

By the time students reach junior year in high school, they're used to taking standardized tests.

The Prairie State Achievement Exams, which also incorporate the American College Testing Program, are different because the results can affect one's future course.

Streamwood High School leaders conducted a spirit assembly on Monday to help prepare the Sabre junior class for the exams.

They invited speakers, including Streamwood Village President Billie Roth, state Rep. Fred Crespo and motivational speaker Lauren Wilson of Everest College in North Aurora.

Topping off the event were members of Second City, who performed motivational sketches geared toward high school students.

"This is the second year we have done this in an assembly," said Dale Spiers, reading enrichment instructor, who organized the event. "Before, we used to bring the speakers into individual classes, but it got difficult to do so, disrupting schedules, etc."

Spiers said she started inviting motivational speakers to appear before the junior class several years ago. As a reading teacher, she's involved in preparing students to take the ACT exams.

"It just kept getting bigger every year," she said.

The end-of-the-day assembly built on the theme of what one does in the present will affect the future. By the time Everest College's Wilson spoke, the use of humor was in full swing.

Wilson used five students as part of a "lifetime ruler," that marked significant events such as starting school, getting a driver's license, graduating college, retirement and death. The purpose of the ruler was to show that the span between the college graduation and retirement is usually the longest.

In addition, Wilson brought out photos of successful individuals -- her grandfather, who graduated college despite living in a family of 14 siblings, her husband who is in the military in Iraq, and Oprah Winfrey, who became a billionaire through her perseverance to rise out of poverty. Finally, she held up a mirror to show the audience its reflection.

"I challenge each of you to change the world in your own way," Wilson said. "You don't have to have fortune and fame to do it."

Culminating the event were a number of sketches by Second City addressing various aspects of students' lives, including dealing with educational budget cuts, questionable situations, embarrassing parents, instant messaging on the internet and the like.