Just apply pressure

Right now, I’m helping two boys (or should I say, young men, since they’re both 12 years old?) prepare for the ISEE. The ISEE is The Independent School Entrance Examination, an admissions test administered for placement in private high schools. It’s like a mini version of the SAT – easier, shorter and generally less intense.

“Timmy'”
I met with Timmy for the first time yesterday. He hadn’t started studying or even looked over the test yet. We started by going through a few questions so I could get an idea of how much help he’s gonna need. And… he’s gonna need a lot. It took us the better part of an hour to get through the first ten questions. He forgot how to do fractions, long division and even had trouble with some subtraction problems. After an hour, he seemed worried.

“Oh man… I shouldn’t have gotten some of those wrong. Sometimes I just make dumb mistakes like that.”

“Well, that’s why we’re practicing!” I said in my cheeriest voice. “Try not to worry – everyone makes careless mistakes like that. We’ll just have to work on it.”

After our session, I spent a little while talking to his parents. They seemed… high strung. His mom just talked and talked and didn’t seem to have any concept that I might eventually need to go home. They told me that Timmy wants to be an architect. He’s taking the ISEE so he can go to this school in San Francisco that has a good arts program. His parents raved about Timmy’s interest in art and made him show me some perspective drawings he had done.

I told them I’d get him a math workbook so he can practice some basic skills before we move on. He seemed eager to improve his performance. We have just over a month to prepare. He’ll probably remember most of what he learned in grade school, become familiar with the ISEE and do fine. (Unfortunately, he’s a little young to properly warn about the financial and emotional perils of architecture… )

“Michael”
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been working with this student for a couple of years and I started familiarizing him with the ISEE in September. But he’s not making much progress. He’s a smart kid… that’s not the problem. In fact, he’s so smart, he’ll figure out exactly how much work he has to do to get by in school and do just that amount and not an ounce more. BUT, If I can get him interested in a project, he’ll go above and beyond. (For some reason, he was obsessed with this Mayan math project last year…)

The problem is, sometimes he miscalculates. Like when he thought he could get away with not reading “Animal Farm” and still write a paper on it. And now he isn’t taking the ISEE seriously enough. Every week, I give him an hour or so worth of homework. And every week when I return, he waits until the last minute and only completes about 75% of the work. And his scores show his lack of progress: his math scores have improved from an average of 43% to 62%. His verbal scores seem stuck at an average of 51%. (He’s not a big reader and his vocabulary is weak.) Never mind the fact that these scores are NOT going to impress his parents that they have hired the right tutor…

So after our session today, I talked to his mom for a while. I told her that Michael isn’t improving much and that I’d like to increase the amount of tutoring. She agreed with me that he taking the test seriously yet.

“I don’t know what to do with him!” She exclaimed. “You know last week while you were away, we tried to get him to sit down and write the essays for the private school applications. He kept putting it off and putting it off. We took away the TV but he can still IM with his friends on the computer. They only way we could get him to do the essays was to sit down with him and practically hold his hand.”

“You know, I helped a student through this process last year and it was the same thing.” I said. “I don’t know if students at this age can really get the motivation to do these applications on their own. I think it’s pretty common.”

“You’re probably right.” She said. “I mean, at one point, I realized that I’m doing more work for this than he is. Maybe, if he just doesn’t care about going to a good school I shouldn’t force him. But how does he know at his age!?”

Driving home tonight, I thought about the difference between the two families.

I’ve got one set of stressed out parents who are going to control Timmy’s every move to ensure his success. I won’t have to worry that he’s not taking this seriously enough. I’m not sure why, but I got the sense that Timmy was picking up on his parent’s stress – and that it was motivating him somehow. My job will be to reduce Timmy’s anxiety about the test while getting building up his skills.

On the other hand, I’ve got stressed out parents who are not willing to set limits or control the situation. They say they want success but they won’t monitor Michael’s free time and still let him spend most of his time on sports. And guess what? Michael doesn’t take the test seriously. My job will be to scare some discipline into him. But he may never listen to me. He won’t get a good score, but then again, he won’t be stressed out.

How do you motivate a kid to do something as seemingly pointless as a standardized test? It may help them get into a good school, which may benefit them in the long run. But in the short term, it may increase their stress level and push them towards a level of achievement that may not teach them about balance or mental health.

I don’t know which family I pity more.