"Testing, Testing, One, Two, Three..."
© Joan Archer
I liken testing of any sort to the story of Louis Braille. He was blinded by an awl as a child, and later used that same awl to develop the Braille alphabet that has enabled millions of sight-impaired people to read and communicate with each other and the world.
When I was in school, I made some good grades, some excellent, some very bad. The stuff I liked, I did well in, the stuff I hated, I did poorly in. I think that pretty much sums up every kid ever made. My mom and dad could not care less what those numbers on the papers said. School was forgotten about the minute I arrived home at the end of the day. Oh, sure, we talked about things that happened, but my parents were not all that interested in my kid business. I had friends who got money for good grades, and were beaten for bad ones. I could not fathom either extreme. My parents discouraged me from "jumping through hoops" for anyone but myself, and whatever I wanted to do was cool with them. It was sort of neat having older parents, because rather than get upset, they kept it all in perspective. My mother thought I was interesting, and we talked about everything under the sun. I can never hope to be the mother she was; my temper is much shorter. The gift she gave me of seeming interesting to her despite any "grade" was what kept me going through those traumatic teen years. My husband, on the other hand, was physically and verbally abused for bad grades. Strangers were allowed to pass judgement on his worth, and were given credence over any evidence to the contrary. Both of us ended up dropping out of high school; I went on to college, he is just now getting his confidence at nearly forty years of age. Better late than never, I suppose, but I've never let a stranger's opinion of my child be more important than my opinion of him, lest every event in his life be perceived as yet another hard knock in waiting.
