Reflective Essay: My Social Security Number In High School

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It took me nearly fourteen years to understand that I am mostly determined by the numbers that are awarded to me: my social security number, my student ID, my test scores, grades, weight, height, age. All of these define me to the people who decide my future. The government, school officials. These numbers tell them what I am: An average student, fourteen year old girl, five foot two, and an eighth grader. All of this is true, but there is a truth that tends to be ignored when it comes to my numbers. They fail to display who I am.
The last few weeks of March and the beginning of April mean many things, here in Colorado. They mean one last big snowstorm. They mean the beginning of April showers. They mean that it’s time to start contemplating when to start planting one’s garden. They mean the beginning of Spring. For students, this time of year fills us with dread. For students, this time of year means weeks out of the classroom for mandatory testing. Every year since the third grade, I have …show more content…
At this point, I had figured out that colleges didn’t really care if I bombed a math test in the third grade, or even the eighth, but these tests were supposedly going to determine how well my teachers taught, overall learning in school, and what classes I would be placed in within the next few years. Great. Now I had my teachers’ careers riding on me, and my own immediate future. Everyone knew that once you were labeled as a ‘non-honors’ kid, it was nearly impossible to change it, or at least it felt that way. It didn’t matter if I could talk for hours about what we’d learned. If I didn’t do well on the test, obviously, I wasn’t smart. Obviously, my teachers had failed me. If I did pass, then I was good. I didn’t need to try for more, or to learn more. I passed the test. That was my goal. That was what I was good for. The No Child Left Behind Act, was in fact, leaving all of us
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