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 TO ERR IS DIVINE
What is the deal with national student testing? How good can it be when they tell you that a non-answer scores better than a wrong answer? That it is better to do nothing at all than to make a mistake? What kind of message does that send? And then of course, who are the people who do better with this, and who are the people who don't?
It is better to give no answer than to give a wrong answer. A lot of kids must have realized on some level right then and there that they weren't "going to the big dance." The time was grade school, then junior high school, and then high school: the national tests that we all had to take year after year, the ones that decided every single person's fate, where or whether we went on to college, and so on: the number 2 pencil, the cafeteria or gym, the clock. And of course: that warning repeated over and over again.
Just what does it mean? It is better to give no answer than to give a wrong answer. It explains more about us as a country and what has happened to us than any other single event. More than the bomb, the cold war, or the colder one between the sexes.
 They are called "Scholastic Aptitude Tests." Presumably that means aptitude for scholarship. Scholastic: "Adhering rigidly to scholarly methods; pedantic. (American Heritage Dictionary)"
It explains who moved on, and up, and who didn't, and why; and what kind of people ended up on top:

 

It explains why women and minorities have traditionally done poorly, and what kind of women and minorities succeeded.

It explains the dearth of imagination and diversity in corporate and political management and leadership.

It explains why we've gone from a country of pioneers, innovators, and giants to a puerile nation of suits. Why we've gone from leaders to followers. Why we've gone from visionaries to visionless.

If we are conditioned and trained to give no answer when we don't "know" the correct answer(correct being the acquired answer, the given answer, the educated answer), then we have given up our own mind, our intuition(gut), our wits. We have been groomed to rely only on what we have been told, and not to rely on ourselves. We are cautioned not to make an "uneducated" guess. We are told we will be penalized, THAT NO ANSWER COUNTS MORE THAN A WRONG ANSWER, that we will be rewarded for no answer and punished for a wrong answer.

Is it worth considering just what this has meant: how it has planted a fear of failure and a fear of the unknown; a passive "don't take risks" attitude; a deep-seeded sense of self-doubt; a coddled ignorance of experience; a shut-down verbal expression, especially in the face of everything or anything we don't understand?

So. Who will lead the way? Who will MAKE (not just read and follow)the blue-prints of the future? Where will creativity come from? Experience? Adventure? Interior dialogue? It is not a mystery that failure is a part of how we learn, that real learning comes from doing. Mistakes are not just a part of the growing process, they are messages and road signs; they point us in different directions, they stimulate us and get us moving. They teach us to think for ourselves. We need to be rewarded for courage, because if we can't risk mistakes, if we can't trust our intuition when we have no way of actually knowing, if we aren't willing to lose or fail because of the negative consequences, then we become powerless, paralyzed, fragile, and ultimately, defeated.

Inventors accept almost constant failure to achieve just one success. Research scientists struggle with setbacks every day their entire lives. Artists let failure and rejection become part of their creative evolution. Atheletes risk losing, and learn to lose, every time they step into the sports arena; that is the whole point of sports: you never know what your opponent will do--you have to anticipate--you have to guess or you're a sitting duck. For all of these people failure is part of the process. Life is no different. Expect the unexpected. No one knows. We need to change these national tests. Let's reward the courage to risk getting it wrong to get it right.

 Life is an experiment!

 Addison Parks

 Lincoln, Ma.;11/7/98 

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