Why is it so hard to accept that sometimes there's more than one right answer?" - Rhonda Lancaster

............................

Doubts swam through my head like frenetic fish. I had hoped so much for a simple answer- perhaps Sofia had to work on her times tables or refine her mental math skills- but this was a problem I could barely understand let alone solve. 

"Pardon me, but... what exactly is the Process Quotient?" 

"It's the reason the Benchmark is a foolproof test. It's why no one can guess or cheat- if they did, their Process Quotients would be so low that we'd know immediately," Ms. Kelley explained patiently. 

"Are you saying that my daughter cheated?" 

"No, not at all! While the Benchmark score is a measurement of a child's academic achievement as compared with others his or her age around the world, the Process Quotient tells us whether a child has mastered certain fundamental thinking patterns at an age-appropriate level." Noticing the confusion on my face, she revised her explanation. "What I mean to say is that while the Benchmark reveals whether a child knows how to do things, the Process Quotient reveals whether they know how to do them correctly. In other words, Sofia can solve any problem in the second-grade mathematics problem, but she does it like a preschooler would." 

"I'm still not entirely sure I understand you." 

"Let me show you an example." Ms. Kelley reached into one of her desk's many drawers, pulling out a stack of neatly labeled Benchmark test booklets. Shuffling through them for a few seconds, she pulled out the one I assumed was Sofia's and placed it on the edge of the desk where I could see it. Flipping it open, she placed her fingernail beside one of the first problems on the page. It was a simple problem- a warm up problem- meant to help particularly squirrely test takers feel at ease. 

5+6 =  

Right next to the equals sign, in Sofia's exaggerated, loopy scrawl, was an answer that was undeniably correct. 11. 

"Sofia, do you remember solving this problem?" Ms. Kelley asked, drawing out her words in a high-pitched, condescending voice that made my blood boil. My daughter understands you better than you think. 

"Yes, Ms. Kelley," Sofia nodded, looking up from her legs which dangled several inches above the ground. 

"Good. Now, can you give us a little summary of your answer to the next question?" Ms. Kelley's finger moved down to the problem just below it. The question was reasonable enough: how did you arrive at your answer to the previous problem? 

The first red flag was that Sofia's explanation was longer than it should've been, especially for a math problem that I knew would've been easy for her. She'd crammed a paragraph of writing into the two wide-ruled lines allotted for her answer, her letters so tiny that I struggled to read them from where I was sitting. 

"Well, first I pictured a rainbow." Sofia stood up from her seat and I watched as she put on a bright-eyed storytelling face. "It's a really special rainbow, because it has two leprechauns- one on each end. But the rainbow is so big that neither leprechaun has ever seen the other. One day, the leprechauns decide to meet at the middle of the rainbow and combine their pots of gold into one big pot so they'll have even more gold. The first leprechaun has five gold coins in his pot, and the second has six, so together, they have eleven coins." 

"That's wonderful, Sofia, but how did you know that there would be eleven? Was there any...addition that you did?" 

"Nope," Sofia shook her head profusely, popping the p. "I just pictured the leprechauns and counted the coins." 

"Does that illustrate the issue better for you, Mrs. Lancaster?" Ms. Kelley turned her head back to me. "She does the math correctly, but she fails to grasp the algorithmic process of addition. How is she going to add two or three or four-digit numbers? How many gold coins is she going to count?" 

An inexplicable wave of anger washed over me. To see my daughter's innocence unfold before me and watch her teacher pick it apart clawed at me as a mother. She knew how to do the math! She had a perfect score! 

"Did I...did I do it wrong, Mommy?" Sofia sniffled, her cheeks turning red with shame. How could we talk about her in front of her face as if she didn't even exist? What kind of monsters were we? She was a child, and she was hurting. 

"No," I replied, looking Ms. Kelley straight in the eye. "There are many ways to solve a problem. You chose your way."

"Mrs. Lancaster, please don't turn this into an emotional issue," Ms. Kelley sighed, running her fingers through her hair before closing Sofia's test booklet. "Your daughter needs help, and we're going to get her some. There are a few camps up in Seattle for children like her- children who need a little extra guidance to learn to separate school from fantasy. If you'd like, I can recommend-" 

"I don't want to send her away to have her imagination stamped out!" I felt the heat rising to my cheeks. I was crossing professional boundaries, but I barely noticed. Something had been unleashed inside me as I fought to protect something I didn't even realize I valued so dearly. "Creativity is already dying in this world, and you and your Benchmarks are just speeding up the process. Why is it so hard to accept that sometimes there's more than one right answer?"

Silence. Ms. Kelley looked as disturbed as I felt. Through it all, Sofia stood calmly between us, taking in what was happening with maturity far beyond her years. It was then, at the sight of her standing there with such grace, that I finally mustered the courage to say something I'd wanted to say for years. 

"Ms. Kelley, I'd like to opt out of all further Benchmark testing for my daughter."