Thinking Outside the Multiple Choice Bubbles

The first lesson called for her to take a set of teddy bear “counters” and put them into four groups of three. No big deal, right? Wrong.

“Does it matter what color they are?” she wanted to know.

“Good question,” I said. “No.”

Quickly, she put three teddy bears together. “Good job, Punky!” I said. “Only two groups to go.”

She thought for a moment. “Well, this one doesn’t like groups,” she said, picking up a blue teddy bear. “So he can’t do it.”

“Okay,” I said. “Use the other bears.”

“These two are fighting,” she added, pointing at two more teddy bears. “They’re having an argument about points. He says it takes a lot of points to win the game, and the other teddy bear doesn’t have any.”

“Just put the bears in two more groups of three,” I reminded her with a gritted smile.

“Well, I could put this bear and this bear together. But these bears over here aren’t playing.”

Twenty minutes and endless teddy bear negotiations later, we finally had four groups of three. We moved on to phonics.

“Now you’re going to color all of the bubbles this fish is blowing that make the “aaaa” sound,” I told her, opening her workbook.

“But why does this fish want me to only color the “aaa” sound?” She asked. “Why would this fish want that?”

“Because he likes that sound best of all,” I said. “He told me likes the ‘aaaa’ sound.”

“But he’s a fish, mommy!” Punky laughed. “Fish can’t talk! Silly mommy!”

“Just. Do. It.” I said.

She frowned, and then colored in all the ‘A’ bubbles on the page.

Wearily, I put my head in my hands. 

I laugh now, reading this, because things haven’t changed all that much. The way Punky sees it, there literally is no such thing as a yes or no question- and while it can be frustrating when a five-minute explanation morphs into a half-hour discussion over every nuance and scenario and shade of gray, I have to admit that she’s often sort of… right.

Of course, this kind of thing won’t do at all when it comes to school– There’s no room for deep thinking when it comes to answering true/false and multiple choice questions, no space for tangents when you only have three lines on which to compose your response. When Punky was small, her philosophizing was cute, but by third and fourth grade it was agonizing to see entire sections of tests left blank and marked wrong, all because she had spent too much time mulling over the unspoken moral dilemma she’d uncovered in the word problem about Tommy and the fate of his 20 barrels of apples.

Our education system as a whole rewards students for following the formulas, filling in the right bubbles, remembering the steps, memorizing the dates, and doing it all within a prescribed amount of time. When our children dutifully follow all the rules of education, they earn the ultimate prize- good grades. But when they think outside the box, do things differently, seek out a more efficient route, take time to really think about their answers, they’re too often penalized for it. It happened to our parents when they were young, it happened to us, and it’s now happening to our kids.

This bothers me so much because this system is totally at odds with real life.

Look around you– In nearly every case, the truly innovative and successful people out there, the ones we want our kids to emulate, got that way because they did things differently. They found a new way. They thought a new thought. They followed through on a radical new idea. They strayed far, far away from the norm. These things are totally at odds with what our kids are taught at school. And I’m not blaming individual teachers here at all- My children have all been incredibly lucky to have teachers who’ve appreciated and nurtured their differences- I’m talking about the system as a whole. It’s simply not set up for ‘other’ ways of thinking and doing things.

I’m a realist– I want my daughter to succeed within this system because it’s the only one we have, so I’m planning to teach her over the next few years how to make that happen. We’re working on test-taking skills, time management, and simply answering the question when the occasion calls for it, as opposed to turning it into a 30-minute inner debate (or being honest and admitting that she doesn’t care!).

But I’m also determined to make her see her academic ‘differences’ as a real gift– a gift that will inevitably play a big role in defining what she does with her life as an adult.

Yesterday, my resolve was put to the test when what should have been a 5-minute review of the scientific method turned into a 20-minute heated discussion on what did and did not constitute a variable. I was at at the point where in past years,  I would have cut her short, or put my head in my hands, or just told her she was wrong and that was that.

Instead, I took a deep breath.

“Okay. Bottom line is, you need to stick with the definition the teacher gave you on your quiz tomorrow,” I told her, “but I see your points. I really do. And I have to say, I like the way your mind works. This kind of thinking is going to serve you well some day, so keep it up.”

Punky smiled. “Thank you, Mom,” she said earnestly.

And for the first time in forever, I felt like we might finally be on the right track.