CogAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhT!

This week, third graders in our town are taking the Cognitive Abilities Test or CogAT, which is the major determining factor in placement in the advanced classes.

I'm not primarily worried about those advanced classes--Sis and Bud will end up where they need to be (though, I would be stressed if one qualified and not the other, if only for the sibling rivalry.  Ugh.)--but I am a bit stressed about the instructions to parents to make sure the kids get a good night's sleep and eat a well-balanced breakfast.

Talk about two things I don't have any control over.  I put them to bed on-time pretty much every night around 8:30.  Tonight, they were asleep before 8:45; last night, after 9:30.  I offer them a relatively balanced breakfast most mornings:  sometimes they eat, sometimes they don't.

In fact, today, Bud won't up and became grumpy and wouldn't eat breakfast.  And all I could think was "thank heavens it's only practice test day."

Which just isn't right.  Especially because I REALLY don't want them to stress about it.  Or worry about advanced placement.

If I'm like this about the CogAT, how will I be about the SATs???

Teaching Parents

Today was our first parent-teacher conference. The children had been administered the Gesell Developmental Observation (GDO). By playing games and observing outcomes that reveal information on adaptive, language, and motor skills, a trained examiner "makes discriminating observations of a child’s behavior and then evaluates these observations by comparison with normative patterns developed for each developmental age." Of course, Sis and Bud had mentioned tests long before the conference because they each got to play alone with a teacher, which they enjoyed immensely. But today we learned some of the different things they'd done, from completing a drawing of an "incomplete man" and counting objects to identifying letters and walking on a balance beam.

And of course, there were scores for each section, as well as an overall score, all of which are given not so much as a grade but as an age (i.e. where they are developmentally--kinda like Real Age for development instead of health). But I'm not going to reveal any of those numbers. "Hi, I'm Mommy, and I'm a recovering A student." Of course, the first thing that Mama and I, both rather competitive students, wondered was, "so what percentile does that put them in?" You know, class rank. It mattered in high school for each class and for graduation, for SATs, and then all of that again for college, then GREs, grad school comps and orals and language exams. It's an old habit to break, this academic competition. Even if we weren't specifically talking academics, because, you know, they're 3 1/2. And Mama and I are really conscious of not starting that stress this early (or at all, or, well, at all . . . yet. We're working on that. And it's all tied up to definitions of happiness, success, etc, which then leads to public vs private vs homeschooling. Please, please don't get us started). School and learning and developing are fun; we're instilling the love here, not raising stress levels and encouraging competition. Breathe in, breathe out.

Oh, but it's hard. Because even as we sat there, listening to the discussion of Sis, I wondered how Bud had fared. And then when we went through Bud, I mentally noted how he and Sis had done differently and similiarly. At least we have two and can do some comparing?!? If we only had one, we wouldn't know what was "normal"? Terrible, horrible parents. Vicious, evil cycle. Because there is no right or wrong, good or bad. There are no grades. It's all very positive, very encouraging. Both kids are exactly where they are and we love them. And you realize you're completely out of control and you might actually ruin their love for learning, even their lives, if you're not careful, because you are sitting there thinking "well, so that one pushes a tricycle with feet instead of pedalling--do we need tricycles at home? We'll go get them this afternoon. They can pedal through the snow. Hmmm, that child didn't count as high as I've heard--really, really, the kid can count to 29! We'll fetch 'um." You want so much for your kids, want to give them everything they might need, want to help them be and do everything they can and want. And what you end up giving them is a complex.

In the end, it was actually pretty much what we expected--the kids are on paper whom we know them to be--and we didn't have any real questions. Except one. About games. Which were one of the suggestions for both kids. Because, you know, games are important. And I loathe them (ooh, there's that competitive streak again. Snap the rubberband!). Today we learned that they probably aren't actually ready to play CandyLand or Chutes & Ladders by the rules; that's not what's important. We should try Bingo or Uno or any other matching ABCs or colors game. Fine, good, easy. Relief. Sis can make up stories about Candy Land and Bud can ignore the chutes and ladders if he likes. It's not about rules, turn-taking, or sportsmanship yet. Thank heavens.

And so what did we tell the kids, who were playing at Mommy Goose's house? (Thank you so much, Mommy Goose!) They knew they didn't have school and that we were going to talk to their teachers. We told them we'd been to school and that parents were there but none of the kids and how strange that was. That their teachers said they loved having Bud and Sis in school. That they were doing great in school and were great kids. It's all true.

Yep, Mama and I passed our test too.