Lucia Moxey

Running Out of Time: How the American Educational System Punishes Its Deepest Thinkers Lucia Moxey

If you have ever read the story about the tortoise and the hare, you would remember that the tortoise was not fast at all, but he moved steadily. The hare--on the other hand--moved extremely fast, but he was not steady like the tortoise. At the end of the story, the tortoise wins the race, his steadiness rewarded. Most would say the tortoise was better because he moved at a steady pace, except maybe the American education system, that is. America values speed over steadiness in the administration of standardized testing. The timed practice testing system is unfair because it allows advancement for hares: faster thinkers, less anxious testers, and those who arrive at the answer most quickly but not necessarily most deeply.

In a recent episode of the Revisionist History Podcast, the host, Malcolm Gladwell, talks about how the LSAT, a test for getting into law school, is a test for "hares not tortoises." “The LSAT is not a test of someone's ability to solve difficult problems. It's a test of someone's ability to solve difficult problems quickly. It is five sections of 20 to 25 questions and you have a hard limit of 35 minutes for each section. You have to rush. As one LSAT tutor told me, the test favors those capable of processing without understanding. It favors hares; not tortoises” (Gladwell, 2019).

Testing in America seems extremely difficult and unnecessary compared to other countries that do not have time limits to answer questions. In fact, tests in many other countries are taken home to complete in the time frame that works best for the student. Testing in other countries may take other forms like writing a paper, which shows the ability to explain ideas and communicate them clearly. On standardized tests, you just have to bubble in answers. Math tests, especially in Eastern European countries, sometimes only have a few very challenging questions, requiring more work to be done to prove that you have the question correctly. Tests like the LSAT, ACT and SAT only allow for about a minute per question on average, which means they have to give questions that do not require much work. Other countries value a student's deeper understanding of the material. Therefore, why would America value speed if other countries do not? People say that in America, tests are made to award

those who work the quickest and to see who works well under pressure and that those tests are also a tie-breaker between people who get correct answers, but the problem with this is that the tests are only favoring one type of person. Hence, tests should allow students to have the freedom of having their own time frame, pose fewer questions to those students, and demand a deeper understanding of concepts.

The tests value hares over tortoises, particularly male hares over female tortoises, causing inequality among men and women in later life. One recent study of math competitions found that boys outcompeted girls until the time limits were removed, at which time scores flipped and girls were better on the same assessments. According to a research study conducted on 500 elementary school students in Utah, "the...advantage for boys disappeared if the time element was removed from that competition" (Richmond, 2013). Who knows what women could be achieving if limits were removed. If one is wondering why girls are put at an unfair advantage, timed tests are biased against those with perfectionism who like to be careful, which girls tend to be. Some of the deeper thinking female students might be disadvantaged when college entrance and advancement in law are based on timed assessments. Everyone should have an equal advantage in all types of competitions and testing. If girls, people with anxiety, perfectionists, and many more individuals were taken into account for jobs that are biased against “tortoises,” there would be so many different profound perspectives. Thus, tests should equally value fast and slow thinkers because humans have different ideas.

Just because one student is faster at arriving at an answer than another student doesn't make him or her better or more deserving of advancement. Gladwell mentioned a man named Jeff Sutton, who went to Ohio State and is an absolutely brilliant lawyer and Supreme Court clerk. Sutton did not do well on the LSAT considering that he is a slow worker. “So Sutton is in the category of brilliant person who didn't do all that well on the LSAT. What does that make him? It makes him a tortoise, and not just any tortoise, a giant tortoise. He's one of those tortoises from the Galapagos that's five feet long” (Gladwell, 2019). After all, speed doesn't prove higher intellect. Therefore, do timed tests give us the rankings we really want if we have many examples of talented thinkers who underperformed on speed-based tests? Gladwell (a Canadian) also questions why everything is about speed and not thoughtfulness in the United States: “Why do Americans do this to themselves? Do they play Scrabble with a stopwatch? In literature class, do they get extra points for reading Tolstoy's War and Peace overnight? Is there an Oscar that goes out every