I am not a brilliant person. On a scale of 1-10 with 10 the highest, I am about an eight in most academic areas. I could never quite master algebra, trig or geometry. Good thing I didn’t go into engineering.

However, I thought I was as smart as the smartest in my class except for Conne’ DeVore Baker, my close friend and our class valediction, who also tutored half the class toward graduation. The reason I never thought about my intelligence is because none of my teachers made me feel less than bright. I can’t say that was true for other students and I always wondered how they felt.

By the time my classmates and I stumbled through the first month of first grade (no kindergarten back then) with Dick and Jane, we found ourselves grouped. Bluebirds at one table, redbirds at another table, and blackbirds in the back usually hitting each other. What does a bird do at the bottom of the nest? Pecks his way out.

Bluebirds were quicker to learn to read than others, redbirds were striking at their heels, while blackbirds were crashing into windows. A very close friend of mine remembers being a redbird. “I didn’t want to be a bluebird because I didn’t want the pressure, but I sure didn’t want to be at that blackbird table.”

All is not fair in love and education. There were some at my bluebird table who couldn’t read as well as some of the redbirds, yet how did they manage to fly up to the top group? Some parents of these redbirds were not going to stand for their children to be classified, so they pressured the principal who pressured the teacher. What parent wants her child labeled? Not a single one. If mine had been placed in a redbird group, my feathers would have ruffled someone else’s feathers. Most of the blackbirds had no advocates.

Along with bird groupings, there were other ways of detecting intelligence. During my elementary years, achievement test scores and IQ scores were the supreme indicators. Performance on a daily basis granted us grades, but THOSE tests granted us 12 years of our scarlet letters: “S” for smart, “A” for average or “D” for dumb. Teachers talked, sometimes too much.

Every teacher had access to the highly guarded secret of a student’s IQ. An IQ was a life sentence. If you fell within 90 - 109, you were of average intelligence, supposedly. I never knew my IQ score and never wanted to know. If it had been too average, I might never have gone to college and might have ended up on medication for low self-esteem and had issues with my self-worth. What child would dream big if he were told he had an IQ of 85?

These tests also tested teachers, which made them edgy near testing time. From grades one through eight, we students were in self-contained classrooms, so if we did not soar, the teacher was usually given a class full of blackbirds the next year.

Teachers graded the achievement test by an answer “key” sent from Frankfort, unlike CATS, which is scored by the state, whoever that is. The goal was to score grade level or above, not below it. So teachers knew the results immediately instead of six months after the fact and before long, most students knew how other students scored too. I hate to say it but some of the ones whose scores split the roof couldn’t figure their way out of a paper bag.

Finally, grouping became what it always was — damaging and unfair. Finally, students stop taking IQ tests and teachers stopped assigning worth to that score. There are still many problems with labeling students, but not nearly as many as there were “in my day.”

Before I hop off my stump, I must address my frustration with the ACT and SAT. Moneymaking schemes. Students often take them two or three times, hoping to raise their scores. How can higher institutions place a value on 17 or 18-year-old graduates’ ability to succeed by what they score on an ACT or SAT? Too often students are tested in areas they have never been exposed to because the courses were either full, closed to them because they weren’t accepted into “honors” classes, or weren’t offered at all. These tests test NOTHING and thank goodness I never had to take one.

The truth is that when it comes to labeling a child (or anyone), we shouldn’t and we certainly shouldn’t allow anyone in charge of our children to do so either. We shouldn’t label him, compare him, classify him, or speculate about his intelligence whether he be a genius, gifted, average, below average, or mentally challenged.

A very wise principal once said, “Thank goodness there wasn’t grouping when I was in school because I would surely have been a blackbird.” There are no blackbirds; just kids who took off on the wrong wing and had it clipped one too many times. I don’t want children to feel unworthy because someone has placed a label (noose) around his neck. Schools can make or break self-esteem and let’s face it; many people have grown up with scars from being labeled. Now I’ll get off my stump.

Contact Carol Perkins at cperkins@scrtc.com or P.O. Box 134, Edmonton, KY 42129.