Although it’s almost been 20 years, I can still visualize the day I walked into my elementary school cafeteria for gifted and talented testing.
My mom believed I was as gifted as any other child at my school — and my grandparents regularly affirmed this loudly and proudly. None of this outweighed the lack of belonging (and possibly shame) I secretly felt knowing that my testing recommendation came from my own family members. The cold fluorescently lit room and its pre-pandemic yet generously socially distanced tables spoke to my fears. I felt miles away from my peers; the results affirmed this distance with my score.
Since that day, one question in particular — does an intellectual assessment invalidate what it can’t effectively measure? — left me wondering what I’d lost and who I could have been.
That test score planted the seeds of chronic self-doubt that would intensify as I got older. The tension between the test’s “nongifted” verdict and my loved one’s unwavering affirmation of my brilliance confused me. I felt at odds with my private self and my public self. Eventually, I distrusted any acknowledgment and felt uncomfortable and almost gaslit by good scores and positive remarks about my intelligence in secondary school and university. I married and started mothering and hoped those moments would be mostly behind me — until my son received the same “there’s something special about him” response from my loved ones that I had.
As he grew, it became increasingly challenging to shake the question of giftedness. We watched as my son started identifying letters and phonetic sounds by 2, counting syllables and teaching himself to read at 3 — and more recently, is an encyclopedia of math games and science facts. With kindergarten around the corner, we looked into the available options — a mix of public and charter schools. Our decision to place the “gifted and talented school” at the top of the list resurfaced all of my old insecurities. He would have to take not one but two intellectual assessments.
I was able to intellectualize my discomfort under a cloak of criticisms around the importance of equal access to a quality education initially. It was true that I believed exam-based entry was elitist and discriminatory, especially in our rural community. But the pressure to “get it right the first time” is different for Black parents. I knew the stakes are higher for our children. Each child — both my son and daughter — would face a unique cocktail of assumptions and bias. Where we sent them to school could represent the difference between a thriving life or a life of surveillance. I knew I couldn’t risk that based on my insecurities.
He wasn’t consistently in a preschool program. So like his mother’s family almost two decades prior, his father and I would recommend him. There were many thoughts, but I wondered if it was possible to experience this process without passing that insecurity on to him. I knew what being affirmed in his giftedness could mean for his future. But what are the consequences if it didn’t? Was I even capable of affirming my child’s giftedness when I never learned to assert my own?
When we agreed it was worth it, my focus shifted to the well-documented cultural incongruence of achievement tests. I’ve read countless articles on the Black-white achievement gap and how they’re based on white language and cultural customs. Instead of questioning my son’s irrefutable brilliance, I wondered if the test were capable of meeting us where he was as a mostly self-led, mom-directed, and father-affirmed learner. The things he’s learned are amazing, but what about the things he hasn’t?
I saw my younger self in his rapid-fire animal ‘did you knows,’ but he wasn’t me. The child before me had been rounded out by his father’s affinity for numbers and his natural love of learning. I had to accept that he was different from me in personhood, time and place. As his mother, I had to shed what I projected onto him to advocate for him as who he is, not who I was.
Every moment of the weeks leading up to the test felt like a value-judgment of who I was as a parent. My husband was out of town on testing day, but I kept him updated with my anxiety. He wasn’t worried. I couldn’t help but attribute that to him having lived as “traditionally gifted.”
“I would say good luck,” he texted to me. “But either they notice how smart he is, or their test is flawed,” he continued matter-of-factly while we were getting ready to head to the testing center. The message shifted something in me that I’d given up on moving years ago. He didn’t share my experience nor my vulnerability. Yet somehow, he knew exactly what to say to give me the relief I needed.
There was a weirdly familiar sentiment in his words. They expressed the general truth that test results aren’t infallible. There was more. The message conveyed a similar nonchalance that I detected as a child from my parents and community of loved ones when the test failed to reflect what they read as something special about me.
The words reminded me there was something I’d conveniently left out of the narrative of my intelligence. My loved ones and my grandparents, in particular, didn’t need to hear a test result to believe in me. They never stopped telling me I could and would be anything I wanted in this world. Their wisdom could only come from generations of Black Americans who learned to classify themselves on their terms instead of accepting inferiority in proximity to white metrics. While reading that message, I ponder if, instead of me failing the test, maybe the test had failed me.
The message confirmed I was fine, even though it didn’t mention me and assured me my son would be too. We’d continue to supplement his education regardless of where he went to school. No test result would change that. We didn’t need documentation for who we were.
It’s been about a month. We got our results for the first test. I smiled when I heard his score. My husband and I went back and forth on whose side was to blame, jokingly. Now we’re waiting to take the second test. I understand why my family’s support didn’t change. I feel the same certainty in my son’s giftedness. And for the first time, I’m holding none of the shame.