Nearly all people used to be made up of the sunlight that shone on the plants living in the dirt and drinking the water of the place they were born. I’m made of sun and dirt from everyplace but the place I was born. My water, though processed from its source, is from close by. I don’t know what that means for me – if it means anything. It feels important. Though I don’t know exactly how. Somehow, it matters to me that I am made of dust from Florida, and France, and Greece, and wherever else my food has grown. I suspect most people in America are mostly made mostly of Iowa. I wonder if it changes how they feel. I am conscious mass and energy made of dirt, and sunlight, and water. Why shouldn’t the flavor of the places the sun has shone affect who I am when I consume them?

Academic testing operates on the assumption that the individual being tested would not learn the material they are being tested on without the incentive of a positive marker (A+) or a negative marker (F-) made salient by the accompanying social reinforcement of family, friends, institutions, and employers.

And that is true. Without these artificial constructs, very few people would be attracted to learning scholastic material in the way we teach it today.

Consider this proposition: People do what they enjoy. If what they enjoy requires they learn additional skills in order to do it, they will learn those additional skills to the best of their ability. If people are already doing their best, why test?

But if people just did what they enjoyed, how would anything get done? How would we know what to do? How would we know what our purposes are? Why am I here? What am I doing? What does it all mean?

Ok, that settles it. Standardized academic testing is the only thing standing between the modern world and complete existential meltdown. True or False?

Answer:

Knowledge is not power. It is security.

I see the future through my expectations. They cut through the fog of uncertainty. They are the one advantage I have over the other beasts. The other beasts – with their teeth, and claws, and fur – are better suited to survive, except I can see far into the future and they can not.

Imagine my fear when my expectations are violated. I have lost my advantage. I am at the mercy of the strong, the fast, the hungry. predictability is my fortress and the unexpected is a breach of the palisades.

There must be patterns. There must. I can see them if I just watch closely. What is a break in the patterns I discern? A fluke? An error? Who’s error? I need to understand what is happening. My life depends on it.

If I control all the variables, I control the outcome. I create a world of my expectations for my own survival. I deny my senses when they tell me my expectations have been wrong. My lack of foresight is too frightening to acknowledge. If I am not right, I am in danger.