Testing Testing 123

Standardized testing is upon us. Upon my 7-year-old son Jonah this week, to be precise. Here's what he had to say:

"We have these very very important tests. They are very important. Very very important tests."

"They say, 'fill in the bubble under the correct answer' so you have to fill in the bubble."

"They are very important tests because the President of Testing wants to know how second-graders are doing."

"The President of Testing might even show them to Barack Obama!"

"The tests are very hard."

"At the bottom of the page it says 'Go On' and then you go on and then at the bottom of the next page it says 'Go On' and then you go on and at the bottom of the next page . . . and at the bottom of the next page it says 'Stop,' so you stop. Then it starts a new chapter. At the bottom of the page it says 'Go On' and then you go on . . . and then on the last page of the last chapter of the test book, page 99, it says stop, so you stop."

"The test book is very big."

"If you fool around on the test and answer something with the wrong answer even though you know the right answer, you have to go to the office. Because the tests are very very important."

So, I asked him how it made him feel to hear how very very important these tests are.

"Worried."

He's only a second-grader, and, President of Testing and President Obama's interests aside, I don't think these particular tests are even the biggies in terms of the State Report Card, No Child Left Behind, etc. Yet, the pressure is already huge.

The detrimental culture of testing goes even further than a week or so of pressuring small children like they're sitting for the LSAT. There's all those bland fill-in-the-bubble worksheets they do, starting in the earliest grades, to get them ready for tests later on. All the creative work they could be doing. And all the dumb movies they watch at school in the spring after the high-stakes tests are done and everyone gets to goof off because the very very important stuff is over.

Testing proponents maintain that testing helps, because it holds schools accountable for making sure every child succeeds. Unfortunately, every child does not succeed. Some states are already making tests easier and eliminating subjects, sometimes in order to address low scores or poor passage rates on graduation tests. What's wrong with this picture? Here in Ohio, budget cuts just eliminated writing and social studies tests for some elementary and middle school grades. So are the tests essential or not? Do they test something we value - or not? Are teachers going to stop teaching subjects that aren't tested - and what does that say about our educational values?

I'm no expert, but I strongly believe excellent teachers, sufficient resources, and creative curricula would do more for our kids than the barrage of tests they are now subject to. Do we want our kids to have a common base of knowledge? Ideally, perhaps, yes, although what the common base should be in a global society is another sticky question.

Our kids need to become literate (including mathematically and scientifically literate) citizens with well developed critical thinking skills and hopefully a dash of creativity. How do we get there? There's no easy solution. But bubble tests in a kiddie pressure cooker? I don't think so.

What do you think?

Schizophrenia or My Life?

Is it just me or are the shifting roles throughout a working mom’s day enough to make you completely insane? Like the characters on “Lost” who seem totally okay, except when the random time travel starts to catch up with them and they get that telltale nosebleed indicating that their brains can’t take much more? (No, I don’t watch it anymore either.)

In the morning, I am the world’s worst drill sergeant, trying to get uncooperative kids off to school. They immediately have a million interesting things to do – or else are totally asleep because of all the interesting things they were doing at 11:00 the night before. My kids have perfected molasses-like movements in putting on boots and coats, etc. My script: “C’mon c’mon you’re going to be tardy, c’mon, C’MON!” In fact, I could run a recording of my lines daily, and get a little more sleep myself.

Then I try to turn into a productive member of society and go to work. Except I’m already mentally exhausted from the drill sergeant duty. It’s like 9 a.m.

I get to the law school. Get some work done. Maybe even teach a class.

Sometimes I shift into my creative writing personality – go off to playwriting class, sing crazy songs, talk about plays, check out everyone’s tattoos.

I return to the law school. Try not to fantasize about career as successful famous playwright. With many, many tattoos.

Meanwhile, those phone calls and emails and random ADD thoughts are coming in, relating to any and all of the above. Answer student emails! Call the school! Who’s picking everyone up? What meeting do I have to go to tonight? How did my kid get injured at preschool today? What’s due tomorrow? What’s for dinner? When can the law school committee meet? Who needs a letter of recommendation? What am I teaching in class this week? Who has to go to the doctor? What do I have to grade? When's the parent-teacher conference? What happens tomorrow?

That reminds me – human computer and calendar. My brain hurts.

In the evening, there might be some time as a loving parent. Unfortunately, I also have to be a child psychologist and social worker, and the occasional probation officer.

Not to mention the wife role, which I often ignore to my peril. Someone else needs my attention? Really? Now?

My parents are healthy, so I’m fortunately not in the position of having to parent my parents. But I see more roles on the horizon.

Yeah, I know I should slow down and enjoy this time. Too soon the kids will be teenagers, instead of pretending to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Jim and I will be older, and so will our parents. Work obligations and meetings won’t matter so much. There might not even be so many things on the calendar to keep track of, though I doubt it. (I mean, I’m sure to have a play premiering somewhere, right? Right?)

Until I can figure out a way to make it all work, the world whirls by, and I play catch up.

What Matters About What Happened

I am still in disbelief and sleep-deprived from election night. I feel like I am living in a dreamy parallel universe where Barack Obama has won the election and my big brother actually sends me a text message acknowledging "u were right all along AND u r probably the smartest." I must be dreaming. I am elated. I am exhausted. And I am thinking-

Why does it mean so much that Barack Obama won this election?

The obvious answer is race. Little kids of every race and of mixed race can now dare to dream about being President someday. (Thanks to Hillary's historic run, girls can too.) In Obama I see the faces of the kids sitting next to my sons in school, and the brilliant kids I went to school with myself, some black and some biracial, just like Barack. Just like President Obama.

For older Americans, it is, as someone said, as if the country has been reborn. For me, it means whenever Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come" comes on the radio, I start tearing up again. And that endless sea of people of every shade coming together in Grant Park - that's Barack's America. And ours.

On a smaller and pettier generational note: Finally, FINALLY - the Boomers are out of power. We can stop fighting the stale battles of Vietnam and who inhaled and focus on today's world with all of its complexities and challenges. Just in time.

Obama's election also marks the beginning of the end of Idiocracy (I can dream too, can't I?). Obama never talked down to us. He never tried to be someone he wasn't (except perhaps in that unfortunate bowling incident). He never dumbed it down. In fact, Obama would tell us not to fall for the ol' "okey-doke" when the other side tried to go to the lowest common denominator. He trusted us to be smart enough to get it, and he wasn't afraid to show he was a pretty smart guy too. As Obama said many times on the campaign trail, now was no time to have a "big election about small things." For once, we got it right and brushed aside the nonsense.

Apathy went out of fashion. Remember in 2000, when you heard over and over, "It doesn't matter if Bush or Gore becomes President. It makes no difference to my life." We know now how much it matters, in lives lost and in lost livelihoods. It matters. People who had never voted before showed up this time and their votes counted and they helped to elect the next President of the United States - because it matters. I especially want to thank the radio personalities - like my personal favorite Michael Baisden - who never let up about the election and the importance of having a voice.

At last, the Good Guys won. I was never so thrilled as when Clinton won in 1992 because it felt like the political shadow over almost my entire childhood and adolescence had lifted, and the sun was out for the first time. As my four-year-old son Mills says, "Barack Obama cares about everyone." That's it exactly. I have never felt that the Republicans cared about everyone. Not when they only want to win in "real" (read: rural white Christian) America and hold their election night party at an exclusive gazillion dollar resort. Not back when Reagan conjured up the "welfare queen" or when Pat Buchanan railed against gay rights and feminism at the 1992 Republican Convention or when McCain put air quotes around "the health of the mother."

When Barack Obama says he will be the President for the United States of America, I believe him. He understands that the problem is not that government has been in our way, but that government has not been by our side when it matters. He understands that we need to restore the social contract in America and bring back a spirit of national service. Of course President Obama won't be able to solve all our problems, but he can surely lead us in a better direction than that of the past eight years. He gets it. He's smart. He cares about everyone.

Amazingly, he won. I'm wide awake.

The sun is shining.

Mother's Day in the Life

I wrote this essay a couple of years ago when both my boys were in preschool. It reminds of that time, and it reminds me to be present for my kids when they ask me to play.

This Mothers’ Day, I thought about whether I am the mother I want to be. Ideally, I’d like to spend more time with my kids, maybe stay home with them and do something crafty. Not crazy crafty, like in the back of the parenting magazines, where you turn their sandwiches into sea creatures or wrap up the Kleenex boxes in aluminum foil. But I am pretty good with the basic toilet paper tube, for example. I’ve made a dollhouse-sized mailbox with letters and even a little potty, when that was a major matter of interest. My Play-Doh talents have been lying dormant since my older son stopped making requests like, “Mommy, make a radio!” and started making his own stuff. I’d love to return to these domestic artistic pursuits with my boys full time. I have stay-at-home mom envy.

It occurs to me, though, that if I stopped working outside of the home, we might find ourselves living outside the home too, because my paycheck helps pay the mortgage. Or at least, we’d be living less comfortably, with the utilities turned off.

And of course, there’s that open secret among moms that being with the kids all day can drive you completely insane. This is why I have so much respect for my stay-at-home mom friends. I can go to my office and relax. Sure, I have to work, but most days nobody’s going to spill anything. It’s harder for moms at home to get a break from the non-stop demands of parenting.

When I think about mothering, I think of my own mother. She played both roles at different times: stay-at-home and working mom. My mother was home until I was about eight years old. When she told me that once, it surprised me, because I always remember her working. But seeing my mom with my boys now that she’s retired, I remember. I understand why I am so intrigued by the artistic possibilities of the toilet paper tube. She makes them shoebox guitars or a doll outfit out of an old sock. Now I realize that she did this when my brother and I were kids, and that’s why I know how to do it. It’s an act of love to make something out of whatever you have for a little kid, and it teaches that child to be creative and innovative too.

In the years in between having small children and her retirement last June, my mother worked. And worked and worked. Her job was her identity in a lot of ways, and it took most of her time. She was late picking us up from our music lessons (but her working probably paid for those lessons). She missed my high school graduation because she was traveling. But she was there for family dinner, and our concerts, and to help with our math homework. She worked hard to help support us, and she worked harder than she had to because she thrived on it. With parenting, your kids absorb it all. Lessons are taught and learned, consciously or not.

So I wonder: am I the mother I want to be? My kids are little (4 and almost 2) and I work full-time. I don’t spend as much time with them as I would like. I take them to all-day preschool when they don’t want to go. I take them to their grandparents’ house where they love to be, but still ask me to “stay here, Mommy. Don’t go to work.” I miss dinner twice a week when I’m teaching night classes. Yet, I am with them every morning for breakfast and I am home for family dinner on non-teaching nights. Sometimes, I can even chaperone the field trip or spend a weekday morning with the kids. I still find time to make something out of whatever I have, for them to play with.

When my boys pretend they’re going to work, they take keys and a purse with them to the door. Most of their friends’ moms work, and many of the dads drive to preschool. Daddy makes dinner and vacuums the house. This has to be part of what they’re absorbing from childhood – what they might not remember learning, but will have learned nonetheless, like the toilet paper tube and the Play-Doh.

But that’s the thing about working moms and stay-at-home moms (and dads, too) -- we’re all making something for our kids out of whatever we have, as an act of love. We’re doing the best we can, loving our children and working hard for them. We’re all looking to hold on to ourselves while we do our best by our kids. We’re teaching our children how to be the parents that they will someday want to be.

Paradise Lost

Someday, we may have to sell the Vineyard house.

I said that to my mother the other day, although I felt like a traitor putting the thought into words. It’s a statement loaded with privilege – who has a Vineyard house anyway? – and, at the same time, loss.

Let me explain. In the sixties, my very smart grandfather had the good idea to buy land on Martha’s Vineyard and build a summer home with an ocean view. His family had rented cabins there in summers past. He was a physics professor at Harvard, so Martha’s Vineyard was a natural vacation spot, only a couple of hours away. When my grandfather chose a place, he chose well. There is a private beach for those with houses on the hill where we are. Drive a few minutes in one direction, and you are at a picturesque fishing village. A tiny town can be found the other way down the road. We’re away from the crowds. At least we were.

We can walk up the hill to the cemetery. My mother has started saying she knows more people in the cemetery these days than on the hill. Visitors leave stones and shells and wildflowers for their loved ones. Our plot is in a shaded corner. My grandmother Peg I never met who died suddenly in her sixties after enjoying only one summer in the Vineyard house, my cousin Keith who drowned at the age of 9 (not at the beach as I believed for years, but in a swimming pool in Dayton, Ohio), my uncle who died of cancer and the oddly jarring blank space on the same stone for his widow, still living. And the stone for my grandfather, who made this summer home for his extended family and lived into his nineties. We’re not the sort of people with big fancy gravestones. We’re the sort of people who pick out just the right natural stone, rolling boulders and smaller rocks, part of the landscape, to mark that we were here.

Our house is small, but I never noticed. Then the new people started building their houses bigger and bigger. I wonder what their gravestones will look like.

My mother, my aunts, my cousins, and my brother no doubt have their own Vineyard memories, as I have mine. Childhood adventures with my brother and cousins - fishing expeditions on the pond, sneaking food into the movies, hitchhiking home from the fair when I knew we shouldn’t. My Grandpa’s big birthday parties. Gatherings of neighbors, physicists, New Yorker cartoonists, artists, and writers (my grandfather remarried before I was born, my Grandma Helen, an editor for a New York publishing house), their cigarette smoke, cocktails, and chatter filling the room. Helen’s fabulous cooking. Learning to drive on the dirt roads on the hill. The summer I spent on the Vineyard as a teenager. Walking the beach to get through difficult times, and picturing it when I couldn’t be there. Years later, my husband proposing marriage on that same beach. Burying my beloved grandfather. Now bringing my children to see the ocean and meet old friends.

What started the conversation the other day? My mother informed me that another new resident is building an enormous house, blocking the view of many others, and is importing tall trees to boot. They’re building a swimming pool – a swimming pool! – on the property, despite that there is no municipal water supply and a pond and the ocean are just steps away. The last few times I’ve been to the Vineyard, I worried as much about the massive Mercedes and Lexus SUVs racing down the road as I did about the poison ivy we had to practically jump in to get out of their way as we wandered down to the beach. I can’t relate to the super-rich families I see on the beach these days, their children trampling in the dunes. The middle class owners of my grandfather’s day have sold, died, or are fading away.

I guess I have an old money attitude, but without the money. My family doesn’t want these upstarts spoiling our view, the ones who don’t even know enough to keep their kids off the dunes or board up the windows for a hurricane. We want our privilege, but the way it always has been, the way we inherited it. It’s embarrassing really, but there it is. Or maybe it’s just resentment, because they can afford something we might be losing our grip on. The old summer residents are the Vineyard’s first wife, traded in for a newer, richer, tackier model. And we don’t quite know if we should leave the party and go home.

There is something about holding on to a family house on Martha’s Vineyard when you are not otherwise wealthy. You know you belong (at least you did), but the people around you are perhaps beginning to wonder.

For some people, the Vineyard is all about belonging, and more importantly, showing that you belong. Who owns, who rents, who stays the whole summer, who can only get away for a week or two, who still says Gay Head instead of Aquinnah, who has perfected that Vineyard style of dress – tastefully disheveled with the right color of faded red or blue, like you have just awakened after sleeping on a sailboat, with salt in your hair. Who has the oldest date on their Black Dog shirt. And who is connected enough to know all the new people on the hill.

I don’t see my family fitting in with the nouveau riche crowd. In my generation of cousins, we have a puppeteer, a storyteller, a musician, and a writing teacher. We’re not exactly stockbrokers. We can’t afford to stick around, the intellectuals and artists, I guess. We aren’t rich enough, not in the right way. We haven’t raised our standard of living the way our grandparents did for the next generation; in fact, our trend is downwardly mobile. With the Vineyard house, we might struggle to manage and share the property and its burdens. As it is, the family has to rent it out most of the summer to afford to keep it. The house could someday divide us where once it brought us together.

A decision on selling is a long way off. My mother and her sister manage the house, and it is still a gathering place for family. It will fall to my generation, someday, to decide what to do. A year ago Labor Day the younger generation gathered on the Vineyard. It was magic to see my cousin Josh and my son Jonah playing together, to see my cousin Mark’s daughter reading with my son, my toddler riding the tricycle I rode as a child, to be together the way we all were as kids, and to still have a place to be, with memories filling the room.

We’ll never lose those memories. But I sometimes wonder if there’s still room for us on the Vineyard at all.

Cleanliness

Are working mothers messier than stay at home mothers?

A recent study showed that working moms managed to spend just as much time playing with their kids as stay at home moms. So what gives? Housework, of course, as many of us already know from cluttered and dusty experience. Apparently the time sacrificed by working moms is not the all too precious time with their kids, but quality time with their vacuums, dust mops, and sponges.

To be sure, there have always been those working moms who manage to do it all – stellar career, lots of time with the kids, and a sparkling home. What can you say about such people, if they are, in fact, human? Lots more husbands pitch in now too (I simply refuse to vacuum, but my husband actually likes it.) And those who can afford to hire outside help do so in increasing numbers.

But some of us just remain rather, well, messy, and at least we have the career and kids to provide some cover. I am particularly sensitive about my mess; if I had three wishes, one might very well be devoted to cleanliness. Growing up, my mom was the same way. The mess sort of takes over and makes you wonder if you will ever get our from under. Frantic pre-guest cleaning ensues. As that great Internet cleaning guru the Fly Lady says, we suffer from CHAOS – Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome. We at least hope that when we die, we won’t have one of those articles about us that says that the house was “filled with debris,” floor to ceiling of clutter taking over every square inch of space, suffocating the life within.

There are those who truly believe cleanliness is next to godliness. In a cruel parting shot in the break-up of our longtime friendship, a stay at home mother friend emailed me that I was so messy she expected Children and Family Services to take my kids, and I should spend some time picking up my house rather than thinking so highly of myself (and presumably my career). No, I assure you I am not so messy that CFS needs to come by and check up on things. My friend knew I was sensitive about the mess though, and she hit where she knew it would hurt. I suppose it elevated her status as a perfect homemaker to say those things. Would it be better if I cleaned more and played with my children less? Is my failure to attain a picture perfect home just that - failure?

Why can’t we all just get along in these mommy wars? It’s really messy out there, the dried up play-doh, the sticky juice boxes, the overbearing value judgments on both sides. Maybe it is time to clean up our act. Just don’t make me vacuum.