Let’s take a little trip down memory lane, early winter of 1986. It was time to register for my classes for senior year. I had looked through the list of class offerings and chose a “Mentorship in Law” class for one of my electives. This class would be perfect for me since I thought I wanted to be a lawyer (spoiler alert- I didn’t become a lawyer). Within seconds of handing my Guidance Counselor my course request list, she informed me that only gifted students were allowed to take the mentorship class. I, as a matter of fact, was not a gifted student. So, I told her I wanted to take that class, and then referred myself for gifted testing. She gave me a handful of papers and sent me on my way. I only remember three things from my gifted testing experience from back in 11th grade:
- my parents’ response(s) on the questionnaire about their observations of me at home (we’ll tuck this story away for another time);
- the timed IQ test I had to take; and
- the results of the testing.
The results of the test finally came, and you can imagine my disappointment when I read that I received a 128 on the test, but the cut-off to get identified gifted was 130. Needless to say, I did not get to take the “Mentorship in Law” class my senior year due to this dinosaur of a practice in the field of gifted education. It would be many years before I got justice for this disappointment of testing, but I did eventually redeem that score (that’s a story for another time).
Have you ever had a situation where high-stakes testing impacted your life in some way? I’d love to hear about it! ~Ann
Teaching for Talent 