One thing I am dreading as a parent is test results. Be it maths, literacy, science, sport – you name it. My whole life I’ve been told that no matter how hard one tries, if it’s not visible in the results, it’s worth nothing at all.
Statements like ‘but I’ve studied for hours!’ or ‘I trained for weeks’ or ‘I’ve gone through all the past years’ tests’ not followed by an ‘A’ or the first place in a sports competition were dismissed by my parents and teachers. I can see why – the substance is placed there over quantity. It doesn’t matter HOW LONG for or HOW MANY books/notes you go through, if you read without comprehension. It doesn’t matter if you train for weeks if you still don’t understand what you are doing wrong. That way of thinking addresses a crucial point of placing quality over quantity and places understanding and comprehension at the core of the whole process. Without it, id really does not matter what your effort is, as it won’t be followed by result.
On a different note, isn’t the effort rather to be praised than the result? If one is not a fast runner (pick me! pick me!), wouldn’t it be wiser to acknowledge the effort of actually getting up and trying to get the distance, or even praising the amount of runs rather than treating everyone with the same measure and saying that because they didn’t run a 5k within 25 minutes, their result won’t be taken into consideration? What about kids, who are just simply not great at spelling – NOT due to the laziness or their parents’ excuses, but who cannot truly grasp the difference between there, their, or they’re? Shouldn’t we praise them for their effort and ensure that rather slagging their inability to use their own language properly, we acknowledge the value of the write up and understand how difficult it must have been for them to use the words they are struggling with?
Finally, what about the formal tests? What if the kid comes back with an underperforming grade, be it in percentage, mark or some other way of grading them depending on geography and the times we live in?
I do get it that not all the kids are academically inclined, yet I struggle with this concept as it’s always been drilled into me that I must score high, otherwise it was never good enough. It’s one thing I need to un-learn, but apart from this, I’d like to enable my daughter to enjoy the learning process. At the moment we have no problem with that what so ever, as she’s asking for maths or spelling or anything else you can think of that comes in the form of an activity book and we started to do vertical additions with 2 digit numbers which she processes very quickly. Her sounding out and blending words is superb; she can read simple words without problems and can tell me now when there’s a silent ‘e’ in a few words. Her swimming was amazing and she gained awards at preschool.
But how do I NOT kill this passion when tests are introduced?
Ballsed -up Parenting 