My older daughter, S, has never passed a single STAAR test and she is now in 5th grade. Wait. I should tell you that the STAAR testis the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness. It is the standardized test that is used in the state of Texas to… I don’t even know. Assess student achievement and knowledge? In my experience, it does a better job of testing a student’s ability to take a test. That is not, however, the idea I want to get across in this post.
S has always been a “spirited child” (my mother’s words). The words hyper, energetic, artistic, intelligent, easily distracted, affectionate, defiant, caring, and precocious have also been used to describe her. You may have guessed, she has been diagnosed with ADHD. She is medicated for it, but it is something that has created a barrier in her mind abut what she can and cannot achieve. On the one hand, since her diagnosis, she doesn’t say, “I’m just stupid and I’ll never get any smarter,” very often. Believe me, it broke my heart to hear her say those words. On the other hand, she now uses the sentence, “I just can’t focus right now,” more often that I think she means it. Usually what she means is , “I would rather watch television than do my homework,” or “I won’t do the dishes right now because I would rather play with my dolls.” Never the less, I will usually give her a 5 minute break and come back to it. If she persists along the “I can’t focus” track, I try to remind her that she CAN focus, it just takes more effort for her to focus than most people. She has to put in a little more work and try a little harder. This sounds like a pleasant exchange, but it does sometimes end in yelling and/or tears. She’s not perfect and neither are her parents.
Her teachers have always told us how smart she is. She understands concepts and can explain orally everything that she takes in. Her work tends to be rushed, however, and doesn’t always reflect what she is capable of doing. She did not pass her reading or math STAAR test in 3rd or 4th grade, but her progress was consistent, and she was expected to do well in 5th grade. Her scores came back from the first 5th grade STAAR test, and she was completely defeated. Not only did she not receive scores in both subjects that “did not meet grade level,” her score in math was lower in 5th grade than 4th grade. In Texas, 5th graders have 3 chances to take the STAAR test before they are referred to a grade placement committee to determine whether or not they should advance to the next grade. Scout’s reading teacher told us that even with the accommodations that she has to try and compensate for her ADHD, she seems to be very anxious during testing time.
My husband, M, and I have tried all kinds of things to help her be successful in school and on standardized tests. We are both teachers and try to place “just enough” emphasis on doing well on the test so that she takes it seriously but doesn’t associate her test score with her self-worth. Believe me, that’s a hard line to walk with any kid whether you are a parent or a teacher. We sent her to the after school tutoring sessions and I got some resources from our math and reading teachers on my campus.
About this time, I was reading Carol Dweck's Growth Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Through this book, videos that I watched of Dr. Dweck speaking on the subject, and my graduate studies course, I learned about the power of yet. If you want to learn more about it, I would recommend the book or you can watch this video. It made me understand the idea that the test is not a measure of intelligence. If you don't succeed in your goals, it doesn't mean you should give up on them forever. It's not a no. It's a not yet. Failure doesn't mean that you are done. It means try again and use what you learned through this attempt to do better next time. With this in mind, we changed how we talked to S about the test and the attitude that we had about it and her success on it. Yesterday, she retook the math test and today she is taking the reading test. I do not know, yet, how she will do on either, but I do feel confident that she will feel better about whatever the result is when she is finished. We have plans in place to help her if she has to take the test again, and we are continuing to use growth mindset language and terms when we discuss it.
So where does the bicycle come in? S still had training wheels on her bicycle and didn't seem to have any desire to learn. Her sister, D, who is 14 months younger than her knew how to ride without training wheels and needed a new bicycle so that her knees weren't up to her chin when she rode to school. S usually took her scooter, so had no need for a new bike... Until her sister got one. She complained about needing a new bike, too and we told her that they don't make bicycles in the size that she needs with training wheels. She could learn to ride on her sister's old bike and, once she could ride confidently, we would discuss getting her a new one. That very afternoon she took her sister's bike out, fell down a few times, but by the time the sun went down, she was riding on her own. We talked about how continued effort paid off and helped her to achieve her goal. She made the connection that if she works hard and keeps trying, she can achieve her goals. After this realization, she told us that she knew that she could achieve her test goals if she just keeps working at them. We talked about how even if she doesn't meet her goal this time, she just keeps working hard and doing her best next time.
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