Scott,
Not that anyone is interested in how I got through school, but... :)
I had some help early on in my learning career, that being a year and
one-half off (at home) during which time I got to read every book in my
parent's house. Everything from Homer to Robinson Crusoe, mythology to King
Arthur et al. I was "bed-ridden", confined to a wheelchair after I
contracted rheumatic fever as a child. Looking back, it was the best time of
my life (or one of the best); I got to watch the Captain, the Modern Farmer,
American Bandstand (the good one, from Philly), and could listen to all my
records from that era (early rock, otherwise known as ancient history).
I believe it is no accident that I managed to achieve some verbal skill from
this experience, not that I claim any now. But I wonder how many others had
similar life experiences which led them, allowed them, (forced them?) to
those areas which would require verbal skills over others? (I have one major
regret from that time...I still don't know long division.)
I enjoyed your prep-ing for the SAT; I spent my prep time in my car, which
ran out of gas the night before. I slept in it and went to the SAT the next
morning. I was lucky enough to have about the reverse of the scores you
indicated. I'm sure it was impacted by the experience as a younger person. I
wonder then, if the results of testing instruments such as SAT are really
attributable to those causes which might be popular with the reviewers in
Princeton? In other words, are the good scores the result of hard work in
school, studying under the lamp til midnight, doing all the homework
assignments, etc., or something else entirely?
In testing as in many other things, you get what you pay for. The designers
put themselves into such insruments, and they get the results they seek. The
dropping SAT scores are not necessarily indications of stupidity in the
people who take them, but in the system which prepares them, no?
Oops...I hope none of this impacts on my client list?!?!
--Regards, John Constantine Rainbird Management Consulting http://www.trail.com/~rainbird
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>