are you sure there isn't a tech program that interests you?

marriedtothesea.com

Like most teenagers i experienced a fair amount of "teen angst" and struggled in school...
blah blah blah.
When i found the above comic it hit home in a way that i wasn't prepared for.
I was one of those kids that didn't "test well" It was like as soon as the timer began, or it got really quiet, i froze. This never changed, when i sent my GRE scores into the Umaine system, the chair of the history department said to me, "yes we got your scores, but they aren't anything to write home about are they?"
I decided not to go to that school....
anyway, my academic high school path was decided by tests that put me in a "low" category, as in "not college bound." And with that, i was placed in a peer group that was not necessarily what i needed to grow as a person.

Interestingly, I thrived in college. I read quite a bit and i enjoy a good intellectual discussion.
what happened?

i had undetected learning disabilities including ADD. wow. 1 magic green pill later and i could take "high" level classes. I could go to college fairs! But i was lucky, i had parents who knew that something wasn't right when i would study for hours and still get D's... Imagine how many other students were put on a path based on test scores that did not adequately display their intellectual/academic capabilities....

the system of testing is not a good indicator of true learning abilities or intellect. We all learn and retain knowledge differently. It is important for children to be taught in many different ways (verbal, visual, tactile etc.) What works for some does not work for all (and at different times in a person's development different styles and modalities of teaching may be appropriate)