There Is No Spoon

My mindset as a teenager (see the "Our Story" portion of our Facebook page ) was that my peers and I were so unique that standardized tests, while maybe fit for ordinary American youth, couldn't possibly begin to quantify our giftedness, and thus I could ignore them. That's what I'd been taught to believe for twelve years, and it was easy enough to embrace if it meant I got to skip a lengthy, rigorous, boring process. I think that in 1996, I was in the minority. At least it was and is my belief that most college-bound American kids at the time more accepted and valued the SAT's than my classmates and I did. In general, I think my friends outside of school found the test a normal part of life, tried to live up to its standards, and believed that their results more or less reflected their abilities. Fast forward twenty years. I started teaching the SAT (and many other standardized tests for middle school, high school, and college admissions) in 2015, two ite...

There's a distinct disconnect between being a  good student and being a good  test-taker. Good students are organized, thorough, respectful, and conscientious. They’ve adapted themselves well to the expectations at school: they keep track of and turn in their assignments on time, cooperate with peers, and feel invested in homework and extracurricular activities. But when it comes to testing, they struggle and can’t figure out why what works for them in school doesn't work in this universe. Not so my natural-born test takers. They tend to be more preternaturally gifted but less sociable. They don't value work for its own sake. They're not much interested in peers and participate only marginally in group activities. They highly favor certain teachers while looking down on others. These students have  not  adapted themselves well to school demands and are known by teachers as "that brilliant kid who doesn't do any work." Yet every time that frustrating...

The brain may be God's or a god's creation, but it's also an organ in a biological organism, an electro-chemical machine of incredible complexity. We humans rely on that little bit of flesh we barely understand for survival. A wise educator I knew once said: "You can only teach what you know and what someone else wants to learn." I would add to that, "and what we're physically capable of learning." When machines are over-worked and under-cared for, they start to break down. The brain is no different. In the weeks and days leading up to a test date, I see students in all states of disrepair. Studying and stressing are normal, and expected, but students also need to take time for self-care. No matter how much you've studied, if you can't get up (or can't think straight) on test day, it doesn't matter. So consider your fuse box. Realize that it needs rest, not just sleep but also downtime. And that doesn't mean just watching Yo...

Day one,  I ask my students what the test they're about to take actually measures. Many of them haven't even considered this. I offer some options: Is this an intelligence test? An achievement test? A test of critical thinking skills? Well, yes, in some sense, it's all of those, but more than ever the standardized tests--long deplored for their reduction of complex individuals to mere numbers and now eschewed completely by many  institutions of higher learning--are becoming the last bastion of critical thinking skills in this country. The fact that most college-bound students have to reckon with them at some point, even if they never have before and never will again, is a good thing. And what's critical thinking? It means, in a nutshell, making sense of the world. With your own mind. Using your own mental powers. Not being subject to manipulation by advertisers and politicians. Able to assess information and make sound logical deductions about sources, content, ...