I had a hearing test a few weeks ago. My hearing has deteriorated with age, which is not unexpected because my grandmother, my father, and my two older brothers all needed hearing aids—my grandmother in her early 40s and the rest somewhat older.
The testing process was surprisingly stressful. As I listened as hard as I could for the little beeps and buzzes, every stretch of silence felt like I failed. Were there sounds that I was missing? Was my body broken? I remembered that eye tests were similar. Every line I couldn’t read meant I was not performing up to snuff. These tests reminded me that I—or at least my body parts—were unworthy.
As I struggled to hear, it struck me that all assessments can feel like that—whether they measure a physical attribute or how much we know. Every level we don’t meet can feel like a diminishment, another knock against us.
Of course, those administering the tests or assessments do it out of a spirit of helping. They offer something to make up our gaps—whether it is hearing aids, an eye prescription, or remedial help – so we can function more smoothly in the world. But their support is still rooted in deficit thinking. What am I missing, and how do I make up for it?
Our education system assesses in a similar way. Children and youth are evaluated constantly—maybe multiple times a day. What do they know? What can they do? Students who don’t perform well experience this lack, this gap between themselves and those who do, and it can chip away at their identity. Too often, they start feeling less than and eventually give up trying.
It would have helped me if the audiologist had explicitly presented the hearing aid in the context of helping— “We have many ways to help you hear and we just need to figure out what way is best.” Or if the teacher said, “I want you to be able to use math like a wizard, so let’s figure out how I can help you do that.” But most of the time, the spirit of “helping” is either implied or lacking altogether, and assessments feel like a measure of our worth.
Taking that hearing test certainly knocked me off balance. It tapped into all my fears of not wanting to be like my grandmother, who heard voices and acted out and was institutionalized at Agnews Insane Asylum several times.
But sometimes, we have to go through the pain of assessing what is not working to become more of who we want to be.
I had a choice, and the most empowering choice I could make for myself was to remind myself that by taking the test and then wearing the hearing aids, I was helping myself and others. If I could hear well, I could listen to others better and become more of the person I want to be.
What empowering choice can you make for yourself today?
With resilience,
Meri and the Dovetail Learning team