The new school year has started in most U.S. public schools, along with all the angst children have of tests, especially math tests.
It doesn’t take much effort for me to remember the abject terror I had of these things back when I was a kid, although it was a long, long time ago – back in the days before Micheal Jackson had a solo career, when Ronald Reagan was an actor, David Copperfield was a Dickens character, Google was Snuffy Smith’s buddy (anybody get that reference?) and the world was a much, much different place.
The terror came from knowing that there was no way in hell I was going to pass those math tests. I never passed math in any grade I can remember, except the year we had geometry with Mr. Golden. The schools I attended were rated wayyyy above the national average, yet I walked into and out of every math class wondering what the hell the teacher was talking about, and why did half the kids get it and half the kids not get it?
I learned all of my math, other than geometry, later in life, and outside of any educational institution. I’m not alone, either. There is case after case of people who are much more competent at mathematics than you or I, who are autodidacts.
Math education has changed since my day, but one of the things that doesn’t seem to have progressed satisfactorily is the way we test students. Standardized tests are still, well, the standard. Standard, of course meaning, among other things, “not exceptional.”
