Tests

I checked my facebook one day last week and saw where a sweet teenager I know from church had commented why do teachers have to give tests on the same day. Felt kind of sorry for her. Little further down saw a good friend had posted that she had been back to the dentist to have tooth "re-drilled" finally pain free, her husband had been in a car accident, car was totaled, but he was okay. This is after having an appendectomy performed on one of her kids that week. Makes me wonder if having a test in every "subject" in high school on the same day is preparing us for the tests we face later in life. I feel like Steve and I have a test in multiple subjects every day as adults. We have a test in Economics, how we are going to spend our money, wisely or foolishly. We have a test in Sociology as we try deal with difficult situations with others we are in contact with, whether family or work or friends. Physical Education is a daily thing, are we going to exercise and eat right and take care of our body or are we going to fail that test and just sit on the couch and eat donuts? (I would rock a test in donuts.) We have a daily test in Bible, are we going to spend time studying God’s Word or are we going to blow that one off because the results of that test are rarely visible to everyone else? Drama? Ohhhh, I pass that one. Home Economics, or should I be correct and call it Family and Consumer Sciences, I think that’s the new name, they just call it FACS at the school. I could go on (and on and on, if you’ve read my blog more than once you know that), but I’m stopping here because I can’t figure out a way to bring Science into this. Or Pottery.
I passed a couple of these tests last week, one in Sociology, took the high road (Hey Wendi, did you see me there that 30 minutes?) The donut one, I took Whitney’s recipe and made donuts and ate them, so I passed that one as well. Economics? Passed that one, made money stretch further than it’s supposed to, of course, I give credit to God for that miracle. Got my feelings hurt and sulked like a teenage girl for an evening, which means I passed Drama, but failed miserable in Sociology. I failed more than that one though, in Home Economics, how many times can you feed your family leftovers, sandwiches, Freddy’s or easy mac in a week and still pass? As adults we don’t get graded with numbers and percents, it’s pretty much pass/fail. There is no make up test or summer school. You just fail. My kid’s grades are available for my viewing on-line. They are updated every week. I can look at the detail and see what assignments are missing or have a low score. I take it one step further and I started keeping a graph of Nate’s grades his freshman year. Because an 80% is a B and it’s a good score, but if it dropped from a 95% last week that’s not good. If it’s up from a 70%, it’s great. Here’s Nate’s for the year. (Have to explain, he had pop quiz first day of Pre-Calc/Trig and Physics. Didn’t do so well, but the first day of class? That’s rough.) The straight line is a C average and I expect everything to be above that. The other straight line going into the future is his cumulative GPA. What you can’t see is his 110% in Pottery.

I laugh about this, but can’t seem to stop doing it. My college roommate still tells me I’m obsessive (actually she uses different terminology, and she is correct). As a working mom I don’t volunteer at the school. I know the coach of their sports teams. I don’t know teachers. My kids are extremely independent, and they quit bringing papers home for me to read a long time ago. I know they are both smarter than I am. (My "Conversations with Whitney" posts may not prove that, especially this coming Friday’s but it is true). I don’t understand half what they are doing. Curses on getting old and losing mental faculties, dementia at 41.
What if someone was keeping a grade card on me like the one above? What if I could see that my P.E. score had gone from a 70% last June to 150% this August? Would it show that my Sociology grade had dropped from an 80% to a 40% because I have made these changes in P.E.? If I could look at my grade card weekly and see where I was last week and where I am this week, would it keep me from sliding from an 80% to a 40%? Would knowing that someone was monitoring me keep me on target? What if I had to sit through a parent teacher conference discussing my performance? My heart just started beating faster thinking about it.
Colossians 3:17 (NIV) says "whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus". It would be difficult to fail if everything was done "in the name of the Lord Jesus".