As home-school moms, this can be a hard time of year. There is the ridiculously long month of February (not really, but in homeschooling it feels extra long). Then we face the standardized test situation. In the state of Minnesota, we are required to have our home-schooled children take a standardized test once per year. Traditionally, our family has always done it in the spring. Usually in April or May, sometimes even in June, if I forget to get it scheduled. But this year it is in the middle of March on St. Patrick’s Day. Partly because I only have one student left at home to test and not at all because it might be “lucky”. I will say these years of the online test make it way more efficient, rather than having to fill in the answer circles with a pencil.
Somehow this feels like a test as a home-school mom more than a test of the student. It is hard not to have the thoughts of “I hope he knows all the answers?” “Did I have him do the right subjects?” “What if he doesn’t score high?” We can so easily make it about ourselves and our abilities as the “teacher”!
But the truth is (according to my husband), that it is one test on two days. It is not a test to say that your child is the smartest child on the face of the earth. It is not a test that says whether or not that child will succeed in life. It is NOT a test of your skills as a teacher/homeschool mom.
Because truthfully, being a teacher doesn’t come naturally to me at all. I am naturally a “doer”. I am probably more accurately titled an educational coach more than a teacher!
Some of the smartest people, who have scored the highest scores on a standardized test, cannot chew gum and walk at the same time. They cannot talk to a stranger, or even make the most money or be the most “successful”. It doesn’t even mean that they go on to higher education. It also doesn’t mean my body-smart and people-smart child won’t go to college and do well. We make it mean so much more than it actually is meant to indicate!
I have found this test to be helpful over the years. Sometimes it helps me realize we need to focus a little bit more on spelling or vocabulary. But also, if your child does Accounting in high school and not Algebra, then they will probably score lower in the Mathematics section.
This is a lot of rambling to come back to this point. Your child is gifted with talents and skills from God. Those talents and skills might show up well on a standardized test, and they might not. That does not, however, make your child less than as a student/person. Home-school mom, it also does not make you an inferior teacher!
The longer I parent and the longer I home-school, the more convinced I am that we coach and guide and shepherd our children to become whom God has already created them to be. The best thing we can do, is to get ourselves and our agenda and our fears out of the way!