Whether it is schoolteachers and other staff attempting to ensure students are good test takers, medical personnel attempting to fill out forms correctly, or others falling into often-false measurement syndrome, it is easy to lose track of the goal or the purpose of our jobs.
 
This morning I was talking to a teacher friend of mine who works at a school where the students often arrive having a difficult time with basic skills in math, reading, and science.  This school has the reputation of doing well with helping these students make improvement in these areas.  Before they can improve they must be introduced to the concept of thinking of themselves as winners.  One of the programs that has been enormously successful is a girls sports team.  A wonderful teacher manages to form a team of young girls who encourage each other to think of themselves as winners. They do win many games although they may or may not win championships. The teacher is clear that the game, which is most important, is the game of life.  If these students do not learn to feel good about them they will be losers at/in life. They will, in other words, become that which they have been “slotted” by life circumstances to become.  The goal of this teacher is similar to the former football coach at a Baltimore inner city school where the coach tells the boys that his job to teach the boys how to love  - themselves and others.  The goal is not to win football games. Ironically, they do win quite a number of games just as the sports teams of my teacher friend wins many games.
 
I have previously written about my educational philosophy and the importance of staying clear that the goal of education is to explore ways that we humans can take better care of each other by creating a more loving and just society. We must learn how to produce and deliver food to each other, how to build affordable and safe housing, how to feed souls with music and art, and how to dream.  The only reason to take tests is to see how we are doing in learning useful skills, which are consistent with our spiritual purpose.   Sadly, most standardized tests will not measure whether or not we have educated students to care or to think creatively.
 
My conversation with my friend got me to thinking about famous people and test scores.  What about Mother Theresa I wondered.  I found the following about her:
 
Notablebiographies.com
 
Mother Teresa of Calcutta was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 27, 1910. At the time of her birth, Skopje was located within the Ottoman Empire, a vast empire controlled by the Turks in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Agnes was the last of three children born to Nikola and Dranafile Bojaxhiu, Albanian grocers. When Agnes was nine years old, her happy, comfortable, close-knit family life was upset when her father died. She attended public school in Skopje, and first showed religious interests as a member of a school society that focused on foreign missions (groups that travel to foreign countries to spread their religious beliefs). By the age of twelve, she felt she had a calling to help the poor.
This calling took sharper focus through Mother Teresa's teenage years, when she was especially inspired by reports of work being done in India by Yugoslav Jesuit missionaries serving in Bengal, India. When she was eighteen, Mother Teresa left home to join a community of Irish nuns, the Sisters of Loretto, who had a mission in Calcutta, India. She received training in Dublin, Ireland, and in Darjeeling, India, taking her first religious vows in 1928 and her final religious vows in 1937.
One of Mother Teresa's first assignments was to teach, and eventually to serve as principal, in a girls' high school in Calcutta. Although the school was close to the slums (terribly poor sections), the students were mainly wealthy. In 1946 Mother Teresa experienced what she called a second vocation or "call within a call." She felt an inner urging to leave the convent life (life of anun
) and work directly with the poor. In 1948 the Vatican (residence of the pope in Vatican City, Italy) gave her permission to leave the Sisters of Loretto and to start a new work under the guidance of the Archbishop of Calcutta.
Read more: http://www.notablebiographies.com/Mo-Ni/Mother-Teresa.html#ixzz3qLCsTwWW
 
That was no help. There was nothing about her test scores.  I goggled her and found many articles about her, but none of them reported her grades or test scores.   
 
Next I goggled The Dali Lama. What were his scores on school tests? Again, I found a lot about the Dali Lama but nothing about his test scores.  Perhaps there is something about the test scores of Mahatma Gandhi.  He did get a law degree. We might assume he got at least passing grades although he certainly was not a successful attorney.   He was more concerned about such non-productive issues as peace and spirituality. Really. What was he thinking?
 
Through the magic of goggle one can easily identify famous, apparently “successful” people, who had very little “formal” education or who did poorly on tests.  Some examples include:
 
Steve jobs – dropped out of college after six months. (He had other issues but they were psychological in nature.)
 
Princess Diana – dropped out of school at age 16.
 
Thomas Edison – dropped out of formal school after three months and then was home schooled.
 
Benjamin Franklin – dropped out of school at age 10.
 
Albert Einstein – dropped out at age 15 and then took and failed the entrance test for the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.  He did return to high school. Thank God!
 
John D. Rockefeller – two months before high school graduation he dropped out of high school and then took some business courses.
 
Walt Disney – dropped out of school at age 16.
 
Richard Branson – dropped out of school at 16 – founder of Virgin Airlines.
 
George Burns – famous comedian – dropped out of school after 4th grade.
 
Colonel Sanders (Kentucky Fried Chicken fame) – dropped out of elementary school.
 
Charles Dickens – dropped out of school at age 12
 
Bill Gates – dropped out of Harvard in his junior year.
 
This is just a sample of folks who probably would have performed very poorly on standardized tests if they had even stayed in school to take them. 
 
Do not get me wrong. I am not suggesting that the only successful people are those who drop out of school. On the other hand, I am suggesting that we cannot predict the future success of someone by how well they do on test scores.  I am also suggesting that many individuals I have met and many who have hired me as a counselor/therapist have been much better test takers than I have.  Personally, I am a terrible test taker.  I do best on essay tests where I can offer an opinion or a thought process. I do terrible on tests requiring out-of-context memorization or multiple choice (I tend to write comments about the question in the margins of the test when possible about how poorly the questions are worded and why one of the answers is correct). I might also answer a question about “facts” by writing “I will goggle or otherwise research should I ever feel a pressing need to have this information. Please get a life.”  Needless to say, these sorts of responses do not result in me getting a perfect score on the tests.   My attitude in general is not likely to win any points.    I obviously do not take the entire process seriously.  Perhaps if I did I would be more successful by the standards of those who think test scores are very important.
 
Part of the problem, of course, is that funding sources, those responsible for accreditation, and other “important people” get sucked into acting as if these test scores are very important.  Then everyone becomes very serious, seriously disgruntled and unhappy, which results in poorer teaching, which results in less learning, which results…
 
If one is going to stay at a school which is a part of this craziness, one has to attempt to find a way to not get sucked into taking all this seriously.  
 
The same thing is true for those working in health care, in banks, and other very serious institutions.   Now, I personally find some paperwork very helpful. When I write a clinical note, I am forced to think about what I am doing and why I am doing it.  On the other hand, if my primary goal is to diagnose a person with an illness the treatment of which the insurance company will pay for, then paperwork is not that important. I have often been unsuccessful in getting insurance companies to pay because I refused to label someone with a diagnosis just so insurance will pay.  They do not like the diagnosis of “pissed body” (person whose body needs a break and better health care). They also do not like the diagnosis of “dumb ass moment” (person whose buddy came to town for a weekend after 25 years and shared a joint. Person tested positive after random drug test results and now must be diagnosed with a drug problem/disease.) Really! 
 
If we are going to work at one of this very serious jobs and not be fired after four hours on the job, we must find a way to creatively avoid getting sucked into the craziness. Fortunately, most of us working at such jobs are not paid a multi-million dollar salary.  We may have a decent salary and “benefits,” but keeping a job so that we have health insurance and money for co-pays because our job is causing illness, which requires us to make use of these benefits, may be a mistake. You think!
 
I went into private practice precisely because I could no longer stay sane and work at unhealthy community mental health facilities. Fortunately, I was able to make enough money to pay my bills and still see people for what they could afford. This meant that I needed to be a good money manager and that I needed to stay clear about the difference between my wants and needs. I have been very blessed to be able to do this.  I know that not everyone can.    Still, I know colleagues who work for such companies as Trader Joes because it is such a positive working environment.  They make less money than they did as teachers, doctors, or attorneys but they are less stressed and can sleep at night. They might flunk the standard test for success but make an A for being the kind of person who they like waking up to! 
 
Written November 2, 2015

甘え

I found a reference to the Japanese term Amae  on page 90 of Father Gregory Boyle’s book, Tattoos on the Heart – The Power of Endless Compassion.  He says,  “The Japanese speak of a concept called amae, living in a deep sense of being cherished, of raising kids lovingly.”   Andrew Hammond in thinkjapanblog.com states that amae “means to depend on anothers kindness….Japanese pride themselves on being dependent. . .This is why many Japanese people come across as energetic and grateful, because they strongly appreciate when something is done for them, and they often feel giri, or obligation to return the kindness.   This obligation is often the beginning of a relationship… Amae is instinctive to Japanese, and it is key to keeping a strong, communal relationship in Japan, and maintaining the Japanese sense of respect, humility, and spirit.”

Father Gregory seems to maintain that when you do something for someone you are communicating to him or her that they are important; that they are cherished. That would seem to be consistent with his overall theology.

I read many other interpretations of the concept of Amae.  It was interesting to me that so often the term dependent was used to describe the resulting relationship.  This was frequently made to sound negative.  I would use the term interdependent.  If I am obligated to do something for you because you depend on that for survival and, in turn, the other person(s) are obliged to both return the kindness and to initiate it with others then the result is an interdependence, which forms a system in which, of course, one would feel cherished. 

I want to briefly discuss this concept without explaining the glaring examples of the Japanese not practicing amae towards each other or others outside of their country/culture.  I am not going to deal with the aspect of the Japanese culture, which has been very violent and has not always been free of sexism or other behavior which has not left everyone feeling cherished.  Certainly, we humans can also cite examples of the disparity between what we say we believe and our behavior on a daily basis.  For those of us who comes from a Christian or a Buddhist tradition, we are very aware of our shortcomings, of our failure to live up to our stated beliefs about how we should treat all other people.

In my experience I need a goal to which to aspire.  If I aspire to practice amae, I will daily look for ways to reach out to do something helpful or kind without any expectation of that person giving back to me.  (What some entitle random acts of kindness).  I may, however, have a hope that the other person will, as they say, “play it forward”.    In fact my reading of the results of research on individual and group behavior is that, indeed, if we are treated with kindness we are more likely to treat others with kindness. 

The work and life of Father Boyle is predicated on the belief that we are essentially good.    Father Boyle, ask Miguel, “How do you do it? I mean, given all that you’ve been through-all the pain and stuff you’ve suffered-how are you like the way you are?”  Miguel replies, “You know I always suspected that there was some goodness in me, but I just couldn’t find it. Until one day, “he quiets a bit-“one day, I discovered it here, in my heart. I found it…goodness. And ever since that day, I have known who I was.”

I am goodness. You are goodness. This is at the heart of the work that Father Boyle has done with the LA gang members who have often led a life of crime, violence and abuse of others in every way imaginable.  His assumption, much like the assumption of Mother Theresa, is that in all of us there is some goodness.  If we practice amae  there is a possibility of that goodness being released from the internal safe in which it has been locked because of fear and grief. 

I spent time with my friends Dana and Jennifer and their two children last evening.   I have known these children since they were born. They have been cherished from day one.  They are goodness personified.  Being cherished also allows them to pass through the normal developmental states.    Young Dana is a very precocious 11.  He is exploring his dance and his voice. At 11 one does not always act with kindness or appreciation.  His parents will lovingly guide him through this developmental stage as they will his sister Cecelia    They may get stern, frustrated, exhausted and emit significant sighs at times (they are human), but the kids know that they are cherished.  I also know that I and other “family members” adore and cherish them.  There is nothing they could do which would cause them to not be cherished. They could and probably do exasperate their parents. Thank goodness there is two parents so that can trade off parenting just as one of them is about to lose it.

Sadly this is not the experience of many, many people. This is not how we treat each other when one of us makes a mistake. If we break one of the millions of local, state or federal laws normally we will be punished when caught. Time after time I have sat in a courtroom and listened to a judge tell a person- often a young person – how worthless they are; what an irredeemable bad person they are.  To be sure I have also witnessed wonderful exceptions when the judge says to a young person, “ I know you are a good person. I know you need help and not punishment.” That is not our normal modus operando.

We are a nation which historically has prided itself on our ability to delude ourselves into thinking that we are independent and do not need other people or nations. We can do it. It is difficult to reach out for help; to acknowledge that we need another.  We would often rather pay for temporary comfort of a massage, sexual pleasure, or a maid so that the contract is clear and once we have paid our money we owe the other person/functionary nothing.

I was certainly one of those who grew up believing that I could only depend on myself and could only blame myself if I did not do well.  I started recording and filing my “sins” at a very early age.  I was not going to need anyone or anything.    Yet, later when I looked back I could see that many who provided me with a lot of help cherished me.  It might have been my favorite aunt and uncle, an older woman friend who would always find/make time to listen, a teacher who always said loving, encouraging things to me or a host of others.  They gave without me asking.  This was juxtaposed against the behavior of those, including the minister, who told me how bad or sinful I was.  Although I was not homeless and I did not have to resort to stealing or violently proving myself, I, as did Miguel, have to discover the goodness within me. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the work of the Father Boyles and Mother Theresa’s of this world unlocked the door behind which lives that truth; the truth and wisdom of amae.