The Tenacious and the Tedious

[Louis Harrington <lharring@CAPACCESS.ORG>]

Dear ARN Folks,
        The resident student is back in town. I have learned alot from
reading all of your thoughts and opinions. Gloria, Nancy, Joan and Mary,
you sound like great teachers and great revolutionaries. You see the big
picture aka, the bottom line on standardized testing and education. You
have the will to make drastic change. Marty, James, Maria and Monty, you
are very intelligent and are far more enlightened then the vast majority on
this issue, but from what I can see you cling to the notion that
standardized tests are a tolerable part of education, and fall shy of seing
to need for radical reconstruction. Change will not be effectively
accomplished if we tediously linger in the specifics and refuse to
make some generalizations about standardized tesing in general.

Marty
asked about my background and my feelings about taking to PSAT on tueday.
I am from a very liberal, white, upper-middle class family in suburban
Washington, D.C. I am not aware of standardized tests having any negative
impact on my life so far. All through elementary and Middle school I had
to take them, once or twice every year, sometimes a solid week of it.
>From those earliest days I hated them for their narrow, judgemental,
institutional and deceptive character. As student we were never really
given any strait answers about what they were for, whether they were
judging us personally, or the school or what. Depending on my disposition
at the time, I wpuld either take them rather seriously, like a sport, or
at other times like and joke and in yet other times, I couldn't give
myself one real reason to even try. Once I took a tst for "Gifted and
Talented" and decided to draw on the back of the pages instead of take
the test. In fith grade I took an experemental test in which you got to
write,experiment and draw creatively. It was very interesting, but I
resented it because it required too much time and energy to complete.

        I know know that my score on the test throughout grade school
were almost all in the lowerhalf or even the lowerest 25% of my
classmates. So, as far as the tests are concerned, I'm an ignorant fuck.
Most of those who know me feel differently.

        As for the PSAT, I have some mixed feelings.Intellectually, I am
curious to experience the monster first hand, and do so with a critical
eye. I've found that most of my classmates love it or hate it for Selfish
reasons, being concerned with how their going to come out. If I aplied that
standard to myself, I guess I should be dreading it, knowing that It's
going to make me feel stupid and I probably won't do well. But instead, I
say fuck it. I know who I am, I know what I'm good at, and I know what's
wrong with the test. While you may see, this as a mere defense mechanism
to protect myself from my own infiriority complex, I think it's the right
conscience for me right now. Sorry about the legth of this.Peace and Vibes,
                                                                Nathan
                                                        lharring@CapAccess.org

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