![]() ![]() In short, more pressure and more analysis are probably not the answers. But if even the high-performing kids are freaked out, imagine the kids who cannonball straight through the diving competition. The splash is just slightly too big, and now EVERYBODY HAS AN OPINION ABOUT IT.įor what it’s worth, my kids perform well on these tests, which is completely not the point, but I realize that gives me the privilege of not caring too much about them. This is all starting to feel like the post-diving analysis. I try to be the whisper of grace in all of this law-mongering, and the world is making this very difficult. Or at least care enough to find a printer. Oh, the humanity! I’ve made this concerted effort not to care, and now they’re making me care. And then the middle school (which is in the same district as the elementary school) required that we submit my child’s test scores to register the child for middle school. I tried just not checking the scores this year. As much as I love their achievements in spite of myself, I don’t want this level of detail. I can see not only their score, where their score lands in comparison to their classmates, and where their score lands relative to the rest of the students their age in the state of Texas, but also exactly which questions they got wrong or right. When I do make the effort to log into the test administrator system, I have the ability to micromanage every bit of their post-testing experience. I’m just too lazy to find their social security numbers. To be clear, it’s not that I’m not curious. If they don’t pass, I’m just assuming someone will tell me. You need to know the kid’s social security number, so half the time, I don’t even bother to check the score. The results of these tests aren’t easily accessible to parents. I’m fairly sure that’s all an eleven-year-old needs to hear. I tell the kids to fill in the bubbles, and I send them on their way. For another thing, there are already plenty of people freaking my poor kids out about these stupid tests (i.e., the teacher who told my fifth grader that the tests would influence his ability to “get a job after graduation”).Īs a parent, I think my job is to cool the heated atmosphere around testing. ![]() For one thing, they’re notorious for being poorly written, poorly administered, and a poor indicator of a student’s actual learning abilities or knowledge. I’m working on that.īut with standardized tests, I’ve made a concerted effort to be hands-off. ![]() I try to be cool about it, but I’m not cool about it. I try - so hard - to not micromanage them and to let them be, but I won’t deny the little ping of satisfaction every time they get a good grade or a compliment from a teacher. I’m addicted to the parent portal that shows me their grades. As a parent, I live for affirmations that they’re succeeding, or at least treading water. But like thousands of school children all over the country and every public school student in Texas, they are subjected to rigorous standardized tests. My kids will never be competitive divers, probably because I would make them wear a helmet. Microscopic evaluation of performance is nothing new, and even if it’s not getting worse over time, it can feel that way. Even after the damn-near-perfect ones, the commentator gave a long pause and merely said, “I can’t think of anything I didn’t like about that.” Wow. I watched a diving competition on television this week, and I was struck with the commentary after what I thought were pretty good dives. ![]() I can’t even really tell the difference between a little splash and a medium splash, to be honest. No broken head or banged-up butt? You win. When you hear the diving commentator, especially the one who sounds eerily like Holly Hunter but not quite as charming, verbally clutch her pearls because someone made “too big of a splash,” I die a little inside. If you don’t break your noggin or bounce off your butt, you’re a good diver in my book. So my standard for a “good dive” is pretty low. I’m too chicken to Google it, but given the speed that divers exit the platform and the proximity of their skulls to the hard surface, Greg Louganis can’t be the only guy in history to smack his head on a diving board while twisting his body in the air. I’m just old enough to remember Greg Louganis’ dive in the 1988 Olympics, when he cracked his head on the diving platform and suffered a concussion. To get this issue, or past and future issues, click here. This article by Carrie Willard was originally printed in the recent “Sports Issue” of the Mockingbird magazine. ![]()
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