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The Meaning of Perfect

"Five more days" video update above....

I just want to emphasize this one quick and deeply important thought:

Maybe "Perfect" has multiple meanings for my Perfect Score Project

(Or perhaps I'm making excuses because it appears that I may be an "SAT underachiever.")

All I know is that if I were the boss of the SAT, I'd add an "Empathy" section. That's all I'm saying.

Yes, I still want my 2400 -- and yes, I'm working my tail off to get it.  But just so you know, "perfect score" can have other, deeper, more nuanced, meanings too.

How about a "Perfect Score" for "Visceral Comprehension?"

 

 

 

 
15 Comments | posted September 25th, 2011
 

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Home Life

I’m Suffering From “Decision Fatigue”

About a month ago, five people sent me the following article:

 Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue?

I usually take it as a sign of something important when more than 3 people send me the same article -- so I did what I do with all the other "important articles" (i.e. print it out and carry it around the house with me for a month).

I finally got to this one last night, and wow, yes, I do suffer from "Decision Fatigue"  -- big time.  This is it, exactly:

"No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. It’s different from ordinary physical fatigue — you’re not consciously aware of being tired — but you’re low on mental energy. The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either of two very different ways."

I think this is why it feels particularly hard to be a "good mother" after taking a full 4+ hour practice SAT.  I'm sure my children know this on some level, which is why they work on me for months about important issues such as bellybutton rings, or new computers, and then pounce when they sense I'm weakest.

This usually results in one of two outcomes:

1) I finally snap and say "NO!" because I just can't take it anymore, and then my daughter calls my father to complain that I'm not listening to her.

Or,

2) I say "Yes," because I'm just plain old worn out -- or, as I now know from this article, I'm suffering from "a syndrome."  It's times like these that I've said  "yes" to such things as a trip to Italy, when I haven't even paid my bills.

The article says that the more mental work you do all day, the more prone you are to making dubious choices late in the day.

When there were fewer decisions, there was less decision fatigue. Today we feel overwhelmed because there are so many choices. 

I love that all my symptoms have a label.

 

Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
11 Comments | posted September 24th, 2011
 

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Home Life

bird by bird

I been collecting questions and making flashcards out of them over the last few months, but now I want to take them down, bird by bird, before I'm "immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead."*

They're all valid and deserve thoughtful responses -- questions such as:

  • Have my opinions and ideas on this project changed?
  • Do I still believe that it is possible that I can achieve a perfect score?
  • Have my ideas on influencing my children changed?  Do I feel that I've influenced them at all...either in the negative or positive sense.
  • Am I starting to believe that the SAT is more or less important than I first thought?
  • What were my parents' expectations of me when I was in school?
  • How did I respond to those expectations?
  • Did I push back? (Short answer: You have no idea.)
  • Do I wish my parents had pushed me more?
  • What do I think I've missed out on in life because I didn't do as well as I would have liked to in school?

.....and on and on and on.....

But I'm going to start with one from the easier pile:

How important do you think yoga has been to working through the SATs?

.....to which I responded:

YES YES YES, Yoga Helps.  Enormously.

I didn't have time to find more words, though I did find these from last January, a few weeks before my first SAT since 1982:

My anxiety about this SAT is so extreme that I committed to going to yoga every single day.  I had an epiphany in the midst of chants and oms and happy baby poses that the best thing I can do is to figure out how to relax.

Ok, that's a start, but I still had more to say.

The words I was searching for were delivered by my UPS guy today, in a vessel called Zen in the Art of the SAT.  As soon as cracked the book, I started with the, "Exactly!"  "Right."  "That's it!"

So instead of me wracking my brain, I'm just going to go with, yeah, what they said:

With the SAT, it's not enough to know the material.  To excel on the SAT you must be confident about your ability to read carefully and solve problems -- even strange, inscrutable ones -- under timed conditions.  That's what makes the SAT so intimidating. You can't just memorize the material and then regurgitate it; you have to act in the moment......

As you learn how to ace the SAT, you will gain a deeper understanding of yourself....You will learn to do your best on the SAT not through any tricks or secret formulas, but rather by getting a firm handle on the workings of your own mind.

More to come from me about this book (highly recommend).

*Quote comes from Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.  If you haven't read this book yet, you must.

Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
8 Comments | posted August 23rd, 2011
 

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Home Life

Grade Inflation

Enjoying a perfect summer Saturday afternoon with an iced coffee and new book that just arrived in the mail:

College Admission: From Application to Acceptance, Step by Step                       

It's an excellent resource by Robin Mamlet, a former dean of admission at Stanford, Swarthmore, and Sarah Lawrence, and Christine Vandevelde, a journalist/parent......

......but I nearly did a spit-take when I got to the page about grade inflation:

Between 1980 and 2008, according to a Higher Education Research Institute study, students reporting an average of A to A+ in high school increased from 26.6 percent to 47.2 percent ....  GPAs in some schools climb as high as 7.0.

GPAs as high as 7.0?  

Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
9 Comments | posted August 20th, 2011
 

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Home Life

Core Teen Behavior

...my daughter's best friend was extremely upset when my daughter's grade in Physics was a 99% and her's was only a 98%.  (Quote from a mother in the comments of this post.)

When I hear about these kids, I think I must be running in the wrong circles, because that's not what I'm seeing down here in the trenches.

Here's what I identify with:

Had she allowed me to help... but I think that mattered more to me than to her; she's going to the "school of her choice" (it just wasn't the school of my choice). (Quote from another mother, in the comments of this post.)

Which brings me to this list of Core Teen Behaviors that I've been compiling to remind myself, I'm not alone.

  • 1) "Crumpled (bad) Test" stuffed in bottom of backpack.  See story about Takeshi Kumon and the birth of the Kumon worksheet.
  • 2) The "Missing Test" is a cousin of the "Crumpled Test."  Am I the only one who asked 50 times, "Are you sure they didn't give you the PSAT test booklet back at school?" to which 15 year old son responded, "I'm sure," each time asked.  7 months later, I found it in his backpack along with the ACT test booklet that he also thought he didn't get back.

This blogpost by my friend Catherine reminds me that "Missing Test" belongs on Core Behavior list.

Update: oops  Ms. K. did send home state test prep material (see below). Apparently, C. has a PACKET.

C. demands a break 'first,' before getting down to work. I protest, then cave. I become distracted & lose track of time. C. does not see fit to remind me his 15 minutes are up.

This is my favorite line (with which I fully identify):

Constantly having to remember who's not doing what is eating up what little executive function I have left.

 

Here are a few others that I suspect should be on the list too, but haven't been able to verify:

  • 4) Referring to you by first (nick) name behind your back. This could be specific to teenage girls.  Not sure.  Haven't witnessed boys doing it, but have definitely overheard daughter refer to me as "Deb," on more than one occasion.
  • 5) Work Call Maneuver -- I'm not sure this is even conscious, but when I say "no," they wait until I'm on the phone to ask again.  The more important the phone call, the more likely I am to say "yes," just to make them go away.  They must know this on some level.
  • 6) Dog Years -- Time spent playing video games is calculated in dog years, versus homework time, which is on the slow mo clock.


Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
10 Comments | posted August 16th, 2011
 

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Home Life

Video Conglomeration: My Week Without Kids

My one week with both kids away this summer, is over.

Given that I use "my kids" as my biggest excuse for not being able to "focus" (and trust me when I say, they are always distracting me) -- I had planned to get a lot of SAT work done during those few, precious days when they were both away.

No idea if that really happened; it's all a big blur now.

I can say this for sure:

  • I did do my Kumon every day.
  • I had more IQ and Assessment tests (so interesting).
  • No idea if I improved on the SAT front.
  • The SATs are WAY harder than I'd ever imagined.

 

You know how they say "10,000 till mastery?" I'm thinking that's about right.  How many hours are there in a year?

 

 
10 Comments | posted August 7th, 2011
 

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Home Life

Video Game Ambivalence

I've always been ambivalent about video games.

Here's why:

My son discovered video games at around age five from a boy down the street. From the first second, he seemed drawn in like an addict, just like all the other boys playing the games. The lure of the games was powerful, and he pined incessantly for that little boy’s house. I finally decided to buy him his own games (age five?), but set limits.

I could be wrong (haha), but it is my impression that without these limits, he could well be one of those gamer kids who dies from playing too much World of Warcraft (ok, I'm overstating.....but not by much).

Then I read this comment from a mom named Elise who just dropped her son off at college for the first time:

We just got back from my son's college orientation.  1.5 days of meetings and discussions.  Some interesting points were made that I will share since they seem relevant.  There was a discussion on why some students fail.  It seemed the number one thing that they talked about was video games.  They said that a study was done that showed that students who played 10 hours of video games per week on average had a GPA one full point below kids who played zero hours.  They said that they felt that the kids became addicted and that they felt like they needed a twelve step program for these kids.  They gave examples of kids who flunked out because of this addiction..........They told us that the students should plan on making college a full time job...40 to 48 hours per week."

 

YIKES!  That's my big fear.

I know, I know.....there are studies that say video games are "good for you" -- and PWNtheSAT seems to have turned out pretty well....

I've heard the studies, I've read the books!  In fact, I'm in the midst of Choke by Sian Beilock, and she says that studies show that an hour a day of video games improves your brainpower:

That's right, spending several hours a week playing games like Grand Theft Auto, Half-Life, or Halo improves core cognitive abilities that extend well beyond the computer screen.

My son could have walked right off the pages of this book (e.g. loves legos and video games, sharp spacial reasoning skills, etc.).......

.......but I'm still ambivalent:

  • Are there really kids who can play World of Warcraft for "just an hour?"
  • If not, what happens when they go off to college? (see Elise's comment above for what I envision)
  • Hey, what about Kumon?  Why can't we sharpen the skills with a little Kumon? (I can just imagine my son's reaction to this suggestion.)

No answers from me on this matter, just more questions.

 

Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
10 Comments | posted August 3rd, 2011
 

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Home Life

Video update of my first of five days without kids.

Here's the plan:

  • As soon as they left, I got back into my pajamas (this was yesterday at 2 pm), and read and read and read, and worked, uninterrupted, all day and night.
  • Lots of Kumon.  As much as I can do.
  • PWNtheSAT is coming over for lunch, and I'm going to ask him to give me the roadmap to a perfect score.
  • Erica Meltzer is coming over for dinner (UltimateSATVerbal).

It's a total SAT nerd-fest. (Want to come?)

 
2 Comments | posted July 25th, 2011
 

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Why I Love the SAT

Here's why I love the SAT:

(Note: This is an off the cuff list, and I am purposely ignoring all sorts of legitimate issues, such as the high stakes, socioeconomic inequalities, etc. That's a different post.)


  • If I'm feeling down,  I can grab a College Board Blue Book and start working my way through a section, and within minutes the rest of the world melts away and I'm all alone in my SAT bubble with my "problems" -- but not my real life problems -- these are my SAT problems.
  • I can chart my progress and see how far I've come in six months (which actually isn't that far if you just look at my scores, but it doesn't take much to give me that "I'm getting better!" sensation.)  As long as the line graph is headed in the right direction, I'm optimistic.
  • Despite the difficulty of the SAT Critical Reading section, I have stumbled across some breathtaking passages that lead me to discover books I want to read.  For example, there was a passage from The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri on the May 2011 SAT; now it's on the top of my reading list.
  • I have a visceral understanding of how hard this test is, and as a result have more empathy for the kids who are facing it (not to mention, the educators who are supposed to be preparing them to do well).
  • I am gaining a deep understanding of what's not being taught in school that you need to know to do very well on this test (e.g. grammar, the function of a sentence in a passage, the relationship between two passages, etc.).
  • I've learned new vocabulary words (and what's not to love about that?).
  • I'm officially learning grammar for the first time in my life.  I know that sounds boring, but trust me, it doesn't have to be.
  • I find the challenge of a gnarly looking function problem an enormously satisfying experience.
  • I've discovered this cool subculture of SAT enthusiasts, and I've even had a few kids admit to me that they enjoy the SAT, but I'm sworn to secrecy.

 

llustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
5 Comments | posted July 17th, 2011
 

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Video Update: Kumon, Essays, and a New TV

Haven't done a video update in a while, but here's the latest:

  • The anti-smartboard (i.e. Kumon).  Ol' skool stapled together paper sheets with foundation exercises. And I love it. (I sold my iPad on eBay, btw.)
  • An Essay A Day -- They are definitely getting easier by the day.  All of my "what if I can't think of anything to write" fears have dissipated.
  • Sneak peak at UltimateSATVerbal book.  Full review to come when it goes on sale.  In a word: Game Changer.

Oh, and did I mention I got a television?  I'm re-branding myself as the "fun parent."  No more "crazy SAT mom" image for me.  I'm into reality tv now.

 
4 Comments | posted July 12th, 2011
 

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