The Beautiful Mind

When I was growing up, there was a magic number in my brain that quantified who I was, which happened to be my IQ score.  I'm not sure how I came across it, but it stuck with me.  It became a defining factor in how I perceived myself. And in retrospect, I am angered that my mind was ever defined by a number.

Yet, history repeats itself as this week I am getting data back on my kids that seeks to define in a standardized way what is contained in their minds.  For instance, yesterday, Madeleine had to head over to the local public middle school to take a tedious three-hour algebra exam that is offered statewide with the intent of capturing whether the subject was sufficiently mastered to the satisfaction of the government powers that be. I have difficulty believing that this score will reflect the true depth of her conceptual abilities, but will rather be a superficial measurement skimming along a breadth of skills.

We also have started to receive from our school the Stanford Achievement Test scores, which are intended to help us as parents know that our children are progressing according to grade level and are an expected and appropriate endeavor for any academic institution.

So I'm looking at all these scores on the page and the National Grade Percentile Bands and Clusters and Performance Standard Categories and rows upon rows of digits, digits, digits and I want to ask this important question, of myself and the IQ number I can't shake (along with my own SAT), as well as to my children:

What test can quantify the mind, placed within us by God himself?  

Who can truly assign a number and a ranking to this complex masterpiece we have been given?  

Because every single day, I see in my children the Beautiful Mind unfolding in such a myriad of ways that I cannot fathom how anyone dares try to measure it's creativity and depth and adaptability.

When a child sits down and writes a lullaby on the piano for her baby brother, there is no number to capture the complexity of love and ability brought together in that moment.  Deciding one sunny afternoon to self-teach computer coding, how can you attach a figure to the inclination and boldness and receptiveness of a mind like that?

When that same child turns a phrase in an essay that makes me pause from the surprising stirring of emotions within me, or hides away in the sewing room busy recycling a dryer sheet and a deflated mylar balloon to stitch up a regal outfit for her doll, there is no standard of measurement that quantifies how creative, how unusual, how mutually earth-friendly and technically well made that effort really is.

So when I sat down to look over the SAT scores with Madeleine last night, on the heels of this state standardized algebra test, I told her point blank, without mincing words: school, grades, tests, assessments, these are all necessary parts of modern life, but will never be any measure of the Beautiful Mind God has given to her.  I pleaded with her not to rest in these numbers or tie her self-worth to any flat quantitative analysis as an accurate reflection of the three-dimensional kaleidoscope of brilliance within her.

The brilliance within all of us--His favored creation.

For he has made everything beautiful in its time. 
He has set eternity in the hearts of men, yet no one can fathom what
God has done from beginning to end.  Ecclesiastes 3:11