For the past week we’ve been the luckiest grandparents in the world. Our granddaughters have been visiting. All four, under the age of 6, reminded us why being a grandparent is the greatest gift in the world. They’re all bright, of course. (They’re ours after all!)
Thalia and Ella, who just graduated from kindergarten, are reading chapter books. They can add and subtract into the hundreds column. With the binocular microscope we gave them for their birthdays (they’re a month apart), they can now see and draw three stages of mosquitoes, the pupa stage of the seventeen year cicada, and nasturtium petals. They’ll do just fine on your standardized tests, thank you very much. They have parents and grandparents who provide them with the resources that will enable them to succeed.
But your standardized tests won’t measure what’s really essential:
- Thalia knows to fill the bucket with water before she cuts flowers from the garden so that they won’t wilt.
- Ella comforts her sister when she hurts herself.
- Bea sings all day, making up songs as she goes about her ‘chores.’
- Sage chooses books that’s she knows other children will enjoy reading and asks that we give them to ‘the babies.’
Standardized tests don’t measure what Fortune 500 Companies look for in their employees: how well they get along with others. They don’t measure Emotional Intelligence (Hey, Arne Duncan, have you met Daniel Goleman?). They don’t measure how to live well upon the earth. How to care for living things (Hey, Arne, have you met Nell Noddings?). How to make jokes that people really laugh at. How to manage their finances. How to ask for help when they need it. How to know when they need it.
One size doesn’t fit all. Not in a test. Not in life (Hey, Arne, how about Carol Ann Tomlinson? Met her?).
Don’t make my granddaughters live by rules that measure a tiny portion of one’s life. Do it and you’ll have me to answer to.
