I Hate Testing

I hate testing.  We have turned into a society that places so much emphasis on testing and comparison that it's no wonder our children are paralyzed by anxiety as test days approach.  It's no wonder their confidence and identities are wrapped up in numbers that materialize on computer screens or sheets of paper that arrive in our mailboxes exploding before our eyes either as spectacular fireworks celebrating the importance and worthiness of the student as indicated by those high scores or as mail bombs that detonate eviscerating the student's confidence and identity as the scores are "less than anticipated" (whatever that means).  Testing has co-opted a position of power that it neither earned nor deserves but rather that we as a society surrendered to it in our attempt to quantify our worthiness.  Everything it seems must be quantified in order for it to have value; everything must be comparable--everything we seem to believe including who we are as people. We have allowed numbers to arbitrate our worth instead of accepting who we are as individuals, as individuals uniquely created in the image of God with unique gifts that cannot be quantified, that should not be quantified.

Last night Boss received his ACT scores.  He did very well.  Chris and I both told him so; we both told him how proud we were of him.  He more than "beat" the score he needed to attend his number one college choice.  He, however, hung his head and said, "I wish I'd done better.  I've got to take it again."  After momentarily being caught off guard by his reaction--he's our laid back student, we assured him he could take it again if he wanted to, but that he should be very pleased with his score. We googled the score in comparison to SAT scores and I informed him he did better than either Chris or I had done all those years ago.  "Well," he said, "SK got a ____." And he left for the evening.

This morning as I ironed and Boss and I talked in front of the fire we revisited the conversation.  I told him that one of his mentors and his grandfather had both written emails congratulating him on doing so well and that SK said he did better than many of her friends.  I should have known how serious he was and how much this was bothering him because he didn't announce as he always does, "Do you have to tell the world everything?"  (The answer is 'mostly'.)  Instead he said, "But ______ got a perfect score.  I want to do much better.  I thought I was smarter than this."  I then tried to explain to him that once you are in the range he is in moving up becomes more difficult; I tried to tell him that some people test better than others and that how smart you are doesn't always factor in which is why colleges look at the whole picture; I shared how I wanted to break a certain score but never could and I reminded him that he'd done better than his father or I.  Apparently he only heard the final comment as he responded, "How did SK get so smart if it wasn't from you and Daddy?"

Have I mentioned I hate testing...