Emily has her 5th-grade PSSA tests on Monday and Tuesday. I usually don't tell her until closer to the actual dates, but this year I decided she is old enough to prepare herself for them...so I told her two weeks ago when we first got the e-mail.Hmm...
(Well, I use "prepare" lightly since she's only going to be tested on what she should know already. This particular test measures where the student is as far as grade level is concerned. There's not chance of "failing" since it isn't a pass/fail kind of thing.)
Hmm...
Already Emily is worried about failing. She's dreading it to the point of tears.
I don't know why since she's bright and has done well on the tests the past two years that she's had to take them.
Still, I'm realistic in knowing she may not do as well this year since school has gotten (in her words) decidedly harder.
Am I worried? No way.
As I keep telling her, even if she doesn't do "as well" as in past years and even if it flags her as "needing help," that's success...not failure. How can we improve something if we don't know that it needs improving?
As parents, we are doing our children a huge disservice when we don't allow them to fail. Somehow that reflects poorly on us, making us look "bad," and we don't like that. Whine, whinge. It's not our children that do wrong but someone else's children...or the system...or the teacher...or any other nameable thing.
What does that teach them?
That failure at any cost is bad...wrong...awful?
How does that set them up for the real world when they don't get that long-sought-after job, or they don't get recognized for an award, or they don't get the lead in the play?
I prefer to think of failure as a stepping stone to success.
It doesn't have to be something awful that deflates a person's ego and self-worth. It can be a way of learning; learning that we're aren't as good at something as we thought, that we might need to work harder or try something else.
As I said to Emily the other day: not everyone is born a prodigy. Many, many -- if not most -- of us have to work hard to get somewhere in life.
And that's the true booster of self-worth.
I think hard work makes a child realize and appreciate what she has, including her brain power.
2 comments:
In our house test anxieties began early on. I remember my son's first grade teacher telling the class how well her classes ALWAYS do on these tests,...and therefore she expected that everyone in the class that year would surely do the same. My son could NOT get that out of his head. He asked me what would happen to him if HE were the first to do "bad".
Poor boy! No pressure, right? Ugh.
I don't know why teachers do this to kids. There'd be less anxiety about it all if they'd just let them take the test with no preconceived notions.
As I constantly tell the kids: Do your best! That's all we can ask.
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