My mother stands at the sink, her back to me, and says, "You can't be in the band."
"What?" Somehow I've made it to her side. "But Susan Weber is going to play the clarinet."
My mother scrubs a pot, her eyes fixed on the gray dishwater, her forearms slick with spent suds. I can see the constriction in her throat and hear the resulting harshness in her voice. "You got a low score on a musical aptitude test."
I remember that test. Our class had listened to a short series of tones and then been asked to choose which one had changed the second time around: A, B, C, or D? Not even understanding what the word tone meant, I had guessed at every answer. "So?"
"Only one kid got a lower score than you did, Carol, out of both fifth grade classes. So they don't want you in band."
"You mean I can't get a clarinet?"
Mom shakes her head, pressing her lips together.
Trying to take it in, I leave the kitchen, picturing a line of forty-some fifth graders placed in order of musical ability. Because I'm standing next to last in that line, I won't be beside my best friend when she starts band next month?
I don't remember Susan proudly carrying her shiny new instrument into our classroom. I don't remember being left behind, one of the few souls remaining after the mass exodus to the band room. But I do remember this: Mr. Wagner, my first man teacher, contacted my mother and suggested that she provide me with an alternative activity, something that not all fifth graders could do. And thus it was that for the next couple of years my mother took me to Mt Solo Stables on Saturday morning for horseback riding lessons, where Cathy McRae became my buddy in the arena.
No, I never became an Olympic equestrian. And whenever I tell musical people that I was banned from learning an instrument in elementary school, they are appalled. To be sure, no one should be prohibited from making music. And yet, now that I'm familiar with aptitude assessments and not only approve of them but even advocate their use, I don't want to ignore the information they provide.
In my case, I believe my fifth grade test yielded an accurate prediction of my ability. I received an equally low score two decades later on a Tonal Memory aptitude test at Johnson O'Connor. I've also done poorly in any number of informal "tests." Nearly everyone who has ever heard me sing has asked me to stop. Even sweet little Rusty, a severely disabled boy I once babysat, didn't want me to sing "Rubber Ducky" when he took his bath. Shortly after I'd start to croon, his palms would hit the surface of the water, drenching me with spray as he yelled "Pops!" (his version of "Stop!")
Five decades after receiving a rude lesson about one of my weaknesses, here are my thoughts on the matter:
1) Although I myself had been unaware that my musical ability was in the low range, my weakness was obvious to others. If I had been allowed to play the clarinet, I'm confident that my performance would have earned scowls and scorn from my fellow students, which would have been even more excruciating to me than being excluded from band.
2) The school should never have asked my mother to do its dirty work. Instead, an educator should have talked with me privately and explained that even though there were plenty of things I could do well, remembering tones was not one of them. It certainly wasn't my fault, but my low tonal memory would make it painfully slow and laborious for me to learn to play music.
3) My lack of ability limited my options. Although I'd still love to be a singer, it would have been kamikaze crazy for me to pursue a career in music. Of course I could learn and improve, work hard and persevere, but it would take an unrealistic level of outside support for me to succeed. At an early age, I had discovered that no, I could not do whatever I wanted to do.
4) I later learned to play the recorder but lacked the motivation to continue making music with that or any other instrument. Eventually, I came to appreciate that not being musical was a blessing in disguise, in that it gave me more time for a preferred endeavor, one for which I possessed significantly greater talent and passion: reading.
I was unhappy with my life, so I went shopping. Surely I could justify buying a new pair of sensible shoes. Instead, the salesman held up something that looked like it belonged on a Barbie doll, with a high heel and stylish strap over the instep. He slipped the sandals on my feet and leaned back, admiration in his eyes. I couldn't afford the shoes but bought them anyway, because the salesman had made my shopping experience a pleasure. As it turned out, those sandals brought me joy every time I wore them.
A year I later bought running shoes from a different salesman. Knowledgeable but surly, he insulted my intelligence for choosing a pair that later proved to be comfortable and long-lasting. I still wish I'd pulled him aside to hiss in his ear: "You sold me these shoes despite your poor performance. You should do yourself and your customers a big favor by getting out of sales!"
In all my years of buying footwear, those two salesmen remain in my memory because one of them was just as awesome as the other was awful. They anchor opposite ends of a continuum. That same continuum exists for most human behavior, with strong performance at one end and weak at the other.
Let's switch now from a verbal explanation of strengths and weaknesses to a visual and numerical description, using the metaphor of a footrace. A footrace measures running skill. Like other skills, running can fall in the strong, average, or weak ranges. The image above shows the distance 100 runners have covered after ten seconds. (It also illustrates what statisticians call the normal curve.)
You'll notice that there is quite a bit of spread between the racers, with most of them bunched up in the middle of the pack. Those sixty-eight folks are running in the average range where it's hard to distinguish one from another. In contrast, the first sixteen racers—the strong runners—have broken away from the pack, while the last sixteen—the weak runners—have fallen behind.
In the high and low ranges, strengths and weaknesses are extreme enough to become "visible to the naked eye." In other words, observers are more likely to notice that you're fast, if you're one of the first sixteen runners, or slow, if you're among the last sixteen to cross the finish line. Arrows below the footrace image mark the point where the average range begins and ends (these two points are also known as one standard deviation below and above the mean).
Running is only one skill, but this general concept of performing in the high, average, or low range applies across the world of work. Every occupation has its own unique pattern of required skills, such as those necessary for selling shoes. When your student can use her greatest strengths on the job, she will become an effective and perhaps even phenomenal employee, like the guy who sold me the snazzy sandals.
Strengths are characteristics that help the worker adapt in a specific environment. In the sales environment, for example, strengths could include positive characteristics like being outgoing, developing rapport with strangers, and generating many alternatives. An employer seeks and compensates employee strengths that contribute to meeting his customer's needs. If you were the owner of the shoe store, of course you'd want to hire the most effective salesman you could, because he would help keep you in business.
Your child is best served by looking for work that is enhanced by her strengths and not affected by her weaknesses, so that she can break away from the competition throughout her career. If a particular job requires important skills that she can only perform in the low range, then she's better off looking elsewhere.
Do you suspect this point is too obscure to matter? Consider this little known fact: Many job seekers must submit to pre-employment testing. Employers seldom share the test results with their candidates; instead, they simply hire the applicants whose strengths provide the best match for their position.
And the unfortunate job applicant who has already spent her time and her parents' money to earn her bachelor's degree? She may not even be aware that she's running in the middle of the pack. She will not be hired. And most likely, she will never know why.
