{"id":283548,"date":"2018-09-20T13:16:06","date_gmt":"2018-09-20T13:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/09\/20\/inkskinned-i-knew-in-the-2nd-grade-that\/"},"modified":"2018-09-20T13:16:06","modified_gmt":"2018-09-20T13:16:06","slug":"inkskinned-i-knew-in-the-2nd-grade-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/09\/20\/inkskinned-i-knew-in-the-2nd-grade-that\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

inkskinned<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

i knew in the 2nd grade that standardized testing was bullshit. harry potter book 4 had just come out and i was at a good part. harry had just put his name into the goblet of fire.<\/p>\n

during the standardized test, we were allowed to keep a post-test book on our desk. i diligently got started on part 1: english. at the time, all of the answers went on the same sheet, but all of the questions were in different booklets. so i finish all my english questions, read in my extra time, and then it\u2019s part 2: math.<\/p>\n

i realize i have answered all of my english questions on the math portion of the answer sheet. at first, annoyed but undeterred, i\u2019m like. okay great i gotta erase every bubble. but i get bored around question 5 of doing this because\u2026 like\u2026 harry potter is sitting on my desk and i could just give them the wrong answers.<\/i>\u00a0so i answer maybe 10 whole questions in the math portion, copy the english answers over to where they actually belong, and then crack open the book and call it a day.<\/p>\n

i obviously failed. this is the real life, not a movie. my parents were called in. i had scored in the lowest percentile. i was bad at math. <\/i>i was concerningly<\/i>\u00a0bad at math. i could have done better just guessing than how i did with the english answers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

if this was just a funny story, someone would ask me\u00a0\u201cwhy did you do so badly when you usually get fairly average grades\u201d and i would have said\u00a0\u201ci wanted to read harry potter, not take this stupid test.\u201d but it\u2019s the real life, and nobody asked. instead, i was branded stupid and bad at math. i got placed in a lower math than i needed to be in; got bored, stopped paying attention. knew<\/i>\u00a0i was in the\u00a0\u201cworst at math\u201d group, started saying\u00a0\u201ci\u2019m bad at math\u201d and 100% stopped trying because the further i fell behind, the worse i got. through the rest of my academic career – until senior year<\/i>\u00a0in high school, i never got above a c on a math test, because i was\u00a0\u201cjust bad\u201d at math.<\/p>\n

i had undiagnosed adhd. the only reason i know now i have adhd is because at 22 years old, i finally went to a therapist, who effectively said,\u00a0\u201care you kidding me you have the most obvious case of attention deficit i\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

but nobody had been looking. my one test grade<\/i>\u00a0had given teachers permission to not<\/i>\u00a0look, because, obviously, i was bad at math. the one time i got 100% on a math test – that one time in senior year – i remember my math teacher looking at it and saying\u00a0\u201cit\u2019s clear that if you just focused, you could do the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

in college i\u2019d take a math class and i actually\u00a0\u201cjust focused\u201d for the first time in my life – meaning i treated math as a challenge, but one i could overcome with the skills i\u2019d learned all on my own, through constant work and practice. i got the highest grade in my class. i still think i\u2019m bad at math.\u00a0<\/p>\n

which makes me wonder: how many people got fucked over because of something stupid like\u00a0\u201ci was too preoccupied with harry potter\u201d. who had nobody looking out for them. who slipped under the radar because – come on, aren\u2019t some people just bad <\/i>at things?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I was undiagnosed ADHD too and am also Bad at Math. I took the SATs in high school and remember being a bit shocked\u00a0at getting an exactly average Math score because I was convinced that Math was just something I was terrible at.<\/p>\n

Now that I know I\u2019m ADHD I can recognize that math was boring because of the repetition and my tendency to not do my homework affected my grades. But I still can\u2019t shake the Bad at Math feeling. I long ago gave up on any idea of pursuing science as a career because obviously, I\u2019d need math for that.<\/p>\n

Which is kinda sad because while I am Bad at Math I always kind of found how numbers work to be fascinating and maybe if I\u2019d found a way to keep my interest I could have been good at it<\/p>\n

Standardized tests were a source of frustration because inevitably\u00a0I\u2019d test in the 99%+ percentile on at least English and social studies but my grades didn\u2019t reflect that so why didn\u2019t I just try harder and focus?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

inkskinned: i knew in the 2nd grade that standardized testing was bullshit. harry potter book 4 had just come out and i was at a good part. harry had just put his name into the goblet of fire. during the standardized test, we were allowed to keep a post-test book on our desk. i diligently … <\/p>\n

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