Skip to main content

Test Takers


One of my concerns with the world we live in is kids are growing up being trained as test takers and not thinkers. They are being groomed to come up with the right answers, but don’t learn to answer – or even ask – the right questions. What happens to kids when they graduate college and find out the most important questions in life don’t have a “right” answer.

How will they deal with failure when the are faced with only “bad” choices and try to come up with a solution when all the paths ahead seem to be “wrong”? What’s the right answer when they are laden with student loans and faced with taking a job that will pay the bills or one that fits their passion and desired direction in life? There are no “right answers” when life hits you hard and you lose a spouse, lose a child, go through a major health crisis or even lose a job.

Life isn’t a multiple-choice test in which the answer justifies the means. Sometimes how you address a problem is more important than the answer you come up with. I had a calculus professor in college who would sometimes give us problems that didn’t have a solution. He would let us take them home on a Friday and allow the quiz to ruin the whole weekend before letting us know the equation wasn’t solvable. At first, I thought he did this just because he hated students and enjoyed watching us suffer (the latter was partially true). But I realized he was exposing the way in which we addressed the problem. He wanted to see – and wanted us to see – how we processed a difficult assignment. He was more interested in how we solved a problem than the answer we came up with.

I also had a chemistry professor who would purposely give an exam with too many questions. He would prepare the tests so that no student would have time to solve all the problems. We would have to triage the questions to determine which ones warranted the best use of our remaining time. Some of these problems would have an equation that might take an entire page to solve, and he wanted to know if we could quickly work through the questions and pick out which problems would give us the best return on our time and focus all our energy and attention on those. As a very driven and motivated student, it was very strange turning in a test with only seven of ten questions answered. That really messed with my mind.

These two professors had an incredible impact on my life. Not just on my time in college, but on my life. They didn’t push me to become a better test taker. They challenged me to be a better thinker, to be a better problem solver. They taught me to seek the right question before trying to find the right answer. They taught me how to learn more efficiently. They even taught me how to fail honorably.

The tests of life don’t require the right answer. They require the right processes, the right thinking, the right attitude, the right questions, and they require you to learn when things go wrong. And sometimes, they require you to fail honorably.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Toxic Humility

We have all seen false humility: the guy who tries to hide his arrogance with feigned modesty. It’s usually pretty obvious and always obnoxious. But there is also another variation of false humility out there: toxic humility. This is often displayed in self-deprecating talk and a lack of self-confidence, belittling or undermining one’s own talents and abilities. The danger in this kind of behavior is twofold: it is too often accepted as true humility and like a virus, it spreads doubt and disbelief. To clarify, it is not that the bearer of this toxic humility isn’t honest about his view of himself. That is the very issue: he absolutely believes he has little value or utility. He thinks downplaying his own worth is humility but I disagree. CS Lewis said it best when he wrote, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking about yourself less.” His point being, true humility is not an ever-present raincloud of self-doubt that follows you around. It’s a focus on...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Art of Intentionality

  “Intentional living is the art of making our own choices before others’ choices make you.” – Richie Norton   I am not even sure who Richie Norton is, but I love that quote! I imagine a ship drifting out to sea, pushed around by the wind and the waves. No course of direction, yet the captain is frustrated when the ship ends up dashed against the rocks, trapped on a sandbar or marooned on an inhospitable island. It is easy to complain when life takes us where we do not want to go. But who is really to blame if we have never set our sails to align us along an appropriate course? Do we blame the waves, wind and the weather? Or should we blame the captain of the ship? It is our life and our ship. We must set our sails with intentionality and determined choices. Otherwise, we are doomed to aimlessly drift along according to the choices and decisions of others. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Hasty Hares

We live in a world full of hares. People darting from one thing to another. Always looking for a shortcut. Constantly seeking a quick fix. Ever searching for a hack. And more than anything, they want it NOW! Speed seems to have replaced diligent planning and patient determination. It’s all about quick results, immediate feedback and instant gratification. People seem to be less concerned with the direction they are headed than how fast they are moving. They don’t know where they are going – and are quite possibly moving in the wrong direction – but at least they’re making good time! But the pace and aimless effort catches up. They get jaded and burn out. Or they simply end up “lost.” They fail to notice that movement isn’t progress. They don’t consider that sheer velocity, without control and accuracy, is dangerous and destructive. They forget the tortoise wins. Every. Single. Time. “It matters not how slowly you go. It only matters that you do not stop.” – Confucio...
Post a Comment
Read more