The Purpose of the GRE Test

If, like me, you have recently completed taking (or are preparing to take) the GRE–the Graduate Record Examination–you may be asking the same question I am:  what, exactly, is the point?

ETS, the nonprofit company that creates and delivers over 50 million tests world-wide (to the tune of $150 a pop–$7.5billion ain’t a bad gross income for a nonprofit, eh?) states the purpose of the GRE is this:

“…measures verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking, and analytical writing skills that are not related to any specific field of study.”

Let me tell you this:  when re-studying algebra, geometry, exponents, square roots…etc.,  after having nothing to do with them for well over 18 years (okay, that’s not entirely true–I took the GRE test thirteen years ago, prior to applying for PA school–I would have re-studied these things at that time, too) it definitely feels like approaching subjects that are not related to any specific field of study.

Sure, if I were planning to suddenly become a quantum physicist or a hoping to apply to Harvard’s mathematics department, I might care about being able to approach this type of equation without a care in the world:

y. For x = (1,1), and y = (4,5),
|x – y| = √([1–4]² + [1–5]²) = 5

But even after attending PA school and practicing medicine for five years, I never had to calculate anything more complicated than converting pounds into kilograms and computing milligrams per kilograms for writing prescriptions.

And, yes, I have to admit (as a writer) that, after studying pages upon pages of three- and four-syllable vocabulary words, I am proud to know the meanings of words like recalcitrant, pusillanimous, esoteric (get it??) and punctilious.

But, really, what most of us slaving over this ambiguous measure of intelligence walk away with is a sense of insufficiency.  We know we are being compared, statistically, to all of those other test takers out there who happen to be engaging in the same  masochistic exercise at roughly the same time.  We know we are being asked to exemplify mastery over topics we will have no use for (most of us, anyway) for another decade or two or, perhaps, for the rest of our lives (until our kids get into junior high, that is, and they need help with their algebra homework).  We are being asked to pretend that our knowledge of reducing fractions and square roots has anything to do with, for example, our desire to go forth and study women during pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood and their interactions with the medical systems during these integral times of life. 

Integral times…integral…integers…oh, shit…maybe there is a link there after all…

…Eh-hem…

So, anyway, where was I?  Oh, yes, lambasting the GRE-taking process:

It would be improvident of me to disregard those folks who happen to score well on all aspects of standardized tests like the GRE.  We’ve all heard it at least once–the brilliant son-of-a-gun who nails a perfect score on the GRE (or SAT, GMAT, MCAT, LSAT, etc), thus proving their capacity to go forth and rule the world or take down Vegas in the swoop of a well-planned Black Jack hand.  Yes, in fact, those people exist out there.  Kudos to them.

But for the rest of us poor test-taking schmucks who truly believe in our capacity to study and (dare I say?) make a difference in our chosen field of interest, how are we to interpret the test preparation and test taking experience?  Moreover, how are we to think of ourselves when those test scores come back–telling us that a certain percentage of people out there are smarter than we are and a certain percentage less-so?  Do the perfect or near-perfect score recipients have license to snub their scholarly noses at those of us who squeaked by with lower scores?  Is the risk that would-be scholars with solvent potentials cut their own throats and turn tail–returning to the world of unsatisfactory career trajectories and extinguished dreams–all because of a 60th percentile (40th? 80th?) result?

How do we translate those ambiguous ratings into intellectual capacity, future potential and self-worth?  Perhaps the more appropriate question:  how do colleges and universities translate those numbers into future potential?

A Constellation of Thoughts

I wrote this post about six weeks ago.  Even as I look back at what has transpired since formalizing our plans to move to the San Francisco Bay area, etc., etc., a lot has continued to happen.  I would love to have been able to continue my 3-4 posts/week schedule I’d previously maintained but, well, there just hasn’t been time.

I’m glad to write, however, that our life in Bozeman has continued to click along nicely.  Our daughter LOVES first grade.  She LOVES her teacher.  She is incredibly proud of herself as she acquires new skills (reading chapter books, performing simple addition, learning to read time, learning about mummies, Pharaohs and other ancient Egyptians…) in and outside of school.  She even landed a part in a Christmas performance through her dance school–anyone attending T’was the Night Before Christmas here in town, watch for the farthest to the right Little Rockette.  Meanwhile, our boys are becoming more accustomed to their new (temporary) preschool–perhaps even moving past “tolerating it” to “liking it.”

Now in the middle of my last childbirth preparation class for the year, I am sad and nostalgic at the idea of not teaching for a while.  It has been an awesome nearly-five-year run, and already I can tell I’m going to miss it.  As I press on, I mourn the loss of the baby of one of my couples and, in so doing, am reminded of the sometimes fragile and precious nature of life.

I think too of how we, as parents, cling to that fragility which we sometimes perceive in our children.  Perhaps better said, we obsessively care about our children’s safety and well-being…the loss of a child being the worst possible fate a person could ever imagine.

While down in California last week on my big house-hunting trip (five days, twenty-five houses, 289 miles on the rental car) I felt like I experienced a close call with our kids–even though they weren’t there with me.

On day four of my trip, I thought I’d found the right home for us to rent.  I’d spent time there with the owner–talking about the house and all it’s wonderfully remodeled features, and how it would make a lovely place to bring our children to.  The woman told me about her daughter, showed me which of the three bedrooms she had slept in.  She faxed me the application that afternoon.  I completed it right away.

After returning from the city where I met with a woman in the SFSU Women and Gender Studies department, I dropped onto the hotel bed, exhausted from the preceding days’ activities.  I turned on the tv–telling myself an hour of vegging was allowed after all my hard work.  Oprah’s face filled the screen.  Then, the faces of the missing children she and John Walsh were highlighting on that particular show.

My heart dropped:  of all the researching houses and neighborhoods and schools and churches and preschools I had done that week, I hadn’t researched any of those things in terms of registered offenders.  I turned off the television and turned on my computer.  I pulled up the Family Watchdog (National Sex Offender Registry) website.  I typed in the address of the house we were looking to rent.  As the screen lit up with red, yellow and green boxes–many of them surrounding the little house icon that represented my chosen address–my heart dropped again.  Directly across the street from the rental house lives a registered child molester.  Even worse:  his home backs up to an elementary school.

Scheduled to leave in 24 hours, I sprang into action–making phone calls, searching Craigslist and, yes, questioning the owner of the home we thought we would rent.  Did she know about this guy?  Was she aware there was an offender across the street from where she’d previously lived with her daughter?  If she knew, why didn’t she tell me?  (Ok, I know the answer is obvious here–she has a house to rent.  If she told every potential renter who walked through the door there was a registered offender across the street, the place would sit empty and she would lose money.)

Long story short, I confirmed the presence of this guy (whom the landlady downplayed as “quiet, a little weird, but he keeps to himself and doesn’t bother anybody”–exactly the kind of description people tend to give of freakazoids who end up abducting, raping or killing someone) and found another house for a family to rent.

Even when the mere thought of harm to our children presents itself, most parents I know have little tolerance.  Through my work in childbirth education, I have gained a whole new understanding for the words strength, vitality and empowerment.  I even believe in the uber strength of children–even infants.  I have witnessed countless examples of this within my own family.  But, I have also been reminded of the fragility that sometimes accompanies life.

For my students who recently lost their baby, I can imagine how they would pine for the opportunity to face a move to a sex offender-infested neighborhood (yes, to me, even one offender equals infested–I have NO tolerance for that kind of slime) if only to have that child in their lives to protect.  Life is fragile and fierce and wonderful, all at the same time.  And when it comes to my fragile, fierce and wonderful children, their safety and well-being will always come first.

Winnie the Pooh and Friends Get a New Lease on Life

Last Friday, on NPR’s Morning Edition, I was gifted with the chance to relive a tiny bit of my childhood.  I got to hear recordings from the original Hundred Acre Wood adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

Writer David Benedictus has been granted the awesome task of writing a new chapter–or ten–to the Hundred Acre Wood series of stories.  The new series has been penned Return to the Hundred Acre Wood and is indicative of one of the series’ apparent common themes:  Christopher Robin’s return to his old childhood friends after he’s grown up a bit.

Originally crafted by A. A. Milne in 1926 and illustrated by E. H. Shepard, Benedictus has worked for years to research every little bit about Pooh and his friends–including visiting the stretch of forest that Milne apparently took refuge in as inspiration for his own writings.  In his interview with Lynn Neary, Benedictus states that he believes he’s done a great job in recreating the imaginary land of Pooh, Piglet and the others, and even added a new character for audiences to love:

“Benedictus says one decision that involved some wrangling was the creation of a new character; he was determined there should be one, though his first concept — a grass snake — was not well-received.

‘There were those who thought a grass snake would be too scary for children,” explains Benedictus. So instead, the new character became Lottie the Otter, whom the author describes as “a bit of a snob and … a bit catty, too.’”

The new series is available now for a bargain price of $10.99 soft/$13.99 hardcover.  I’m not generally in the business of promoting products on this blog but–what an awesome gift this would make for a family with kids at just the right age!

If you could request another one of your childhood favorites be recreated…what would it be?

For me–definitely Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

The History of Midwifery

Check out this awesome post on the history of midwifery.

When Grief Strikes: Thoughts on Miscarriage

I’ll start this post by confessing that I am writing from the perspective of an observer–a well informed observer, perhaps, but an observer nonetheless.
I have never experienced the tragedy and grief that accompanies having a miscarriage.

My husband came home the other night and informed me that the wife of someone he knows recently suffered a miscarriage.  The sorrow, relayed from person to person, was evident in the brief announcement he shared with me.

Truth be told, a large percentage of women will experience a miscarriage at some point in their life:  fifteen percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage while a full fifty percent of fertilized eggs actually fail implantation–resulting in miscarriages that women aren’t even aware of.  The majority of miscarriages occur early in pregnancy–usually within the first trimester (twelve weeks).  Only one percent of miscarriages occur after twenty weeks of gestation–the event is then referred to as a stillbirth.

Now, it’s all fine and dandy for me to talk about these issues in such a practical, emotionally-removed way, but for the woman who has experienced the grief of losing a baby–even if that baby is still smaller than a dime–statistics are likely unhelpful at the very least,  and callous at the very best.

In our culture, it is common practice to keep a pregnancy–even a much wanted pregnancy–a secret until passing that magical 12 week mark.  Why?  All of the above.

As far as I can discern it, women (and their partners) want to keep their pregnancies under wraps so that if they fall into that fifteen percent–if they lose the pregnancy–they won’t have already told the world about it.

But really, at a micro level, I still have to ask the question–why?

I have a few theories about this, and hope to receive feedback from others to expand this list of theories.

1) For practical, work-related reasons, a woman may choose to delay announcing a pregnancy to her employer/co-workers until she has:
a.  figured out what she will do, work-wise, after the baby is born.
b.  figured out how her employer will handle her as an employee with an       assumed, up-coming  maternity leave.
c.  figured out the likelihood of her job security in the event that she opts for an extra-long maternity leave.  (In our country, 6-8 weeks is pathetically considered a “typical” maternity leave.  If you’ve already had children and are reading this post, you will know how small and vulnerable; how needy and young a six-week-old infant is.  I can’t wait for the day when a “typical” maternity leave in the good ol’ US of A is three-six months, and a “long” maternity leave is a year.)

2.  Social/emotional reasons
Let’s face it:  only fifty percent of pregnancies are planned.  And when the unplanned fifty percent of pregnancies occur, there tends to be some consideration to undertake.  If the pregnancy occurs outside of a committed relationship or (God-forbid) as the result of an act of violence, the woman likely has a lot of soul-searching to do before she starts announcing to her partner, friends and family members that she is “in the family way.”  Perhaps a pregnancy occurs between two people who are in a committed relationship–but the pregnancy is still very much a surprise:  a drastic change from whatever set of plans the two people had arranged between themselves.  This too may require soul searching:  how do we get our minds around this drastically different  path on our mutual road map?

3.  A woman’s ( or couple’s) fear of emotional vulnerability:
“If we tell everyone about our pregnancy, and we end up miscarrying–then we’ll have to tell all those same people about losing the baby.  There will be questions, unsolicited comments and well-meant pieces of advice that will cause us to re-live our agony again and again.”

This is the part of the equation I find so perplexing.

In other scenarios, when we experience the loss of a loved one, it is socially acceptable to immerse ourselves in the comfort of others; to wear our grief on our sleeves and accept the nurturing that others willfully offer us.  It’s OK, expected and encouraged to talk through the details of that person’s death–moments spent in the hospital with him or her.  Details of a sudden or prolonged illness.  Difficult, peaceful or comforting good-byes.

But when it comes to the loss of a not-yet-born baby (I know, I know…I’m sounding very Right Wing, here) we expect ourselves to bear our grief in relative silence…disallowing friends and family the opportunity to know about our loss and comfort us.

Is this emotional holding others at arm’s length about stoicism?  Or is it just about protecting oneself from the unfortunately idiotic things that (well-meaning) people end up saying in what they feel is an awkward situation?  Conversely, is it about protecting oneself from the isolating silence that may arise from the friends, family and colleagues that would have known about the pregnancy–evidence that members of that particular woman’s support system is poorly qualified to walk with her in her time of grief and loss.

From friends of mine who have had miscarriages, these are the types of comments/suggestions they had been in receipt of in the days/weeks/months following their miscarriage(s):

“I’m sorry for your loss–are you going to start trying again soon?”

“You know, it’s for the best:  there was probably something wrong with the baby to begin with.”

“It must have been God’s plan…”

“Good thing it happened so early on in the pregnancy…”

My suspicion, in the face of a miscarriage, is it’s probably better to start with simply acknowledging the person/couple’s loss by saying something like,

“I can only imagine how difficult this must be for you…”

and offer your emotional availability,

“I really want you to know that I’m here for you…anytime, day or night.  If you want to talk, or if you want someone to be with in silence, please know you can call anytime.  Is there anything I can do for you right now?”

Another interesting twist to this whole dilemma is how parents who’ve already birthed one or more children handle their pregnancies.  Call it feeling cavalier, relaxed or (can you even believe it?) confident in the body’s ability to carry a child…some women/couples announce subsequent pregnancies from the moment the woman has peed on the stick and come up with a positive result.

We certainly found this to be true with our second and third pregnancies.  Perhaps this has to do with trusting that if the woman’s body had successfully carried a baby to a healthy birth in the past, that there’s no reason to doubt that same course again and, therefore, announcing the good news feels safer.  Statistically, this doesn’t necessarily make sense, but the point here is that something shifts in this woman’s/couple’s psyche–allowing her to open herself up to sharing her good news with friends and loved ones.

I am thankful to have never suffered the deep grief that accompanies the loss of a much-wanted baby.  I am thankful to have carried to near-term all three of our children (albeit with a few glitches along the way).  I’m also thankful for the gift several of my friends have given me in sharing their experiences with miscarriage.  Not because I’m interested in voyeurism.  But because I believe their naked honesty has allowed me to be more compassionate and, when suitable, more willing to listen rather than talk in the face of someone else’s personal tragedy.

What are your experiences with miscarriage?  What do you have to add to this topic?

Lastly, here are some links for you:

From the Cleveland Clinic

On-line Support Group

Ideas for supporting someone who’s had a miscarriage