By José Dominguez, February 25, 2021 — Working with people at El Paso Texas gave me the opportunity to learn things in circumstances new to me. My master’s [degree] studies oriented my compass to deal mostly with feelings and human uniqueness. Nevertheless, the abstract generalization of statistics were always present and frequently used. As I understand, standardized tests are the optimum application of statistics in humans. So, instead of having the hardship of knowing yourself, as the Dephi Oracle suggested, with [tests] now it’s easy to know any level of introverted vs. extroverted orientation, ego development, IQ, moral maturity, etc.
Dr. Larry Hamilton, my boss in those times, invited me to work with a group of teenagers in a public school. It was the end of the semester and those kids were going to enter high school. Our intervention was to give advice on decision making so they could have some reference and clarification of their vocational orientation. Dr. Hamilton explained the purpose to the group of 20 or more students and distributed the test. I thought [about] how lucky these guys were because in Mexico it’s difficult to have that experience so handy. The students took the task very seriously and answered the questionnaires. At the end, we explained the way to score the test and the meaning of it. The result would tell the student if their orientation was to mechanics, sales, health, sports, business, humanities, etc. They were very excited and formulated several questions, except for one girl.
She was seated silently with her face inexpressive, looking far, far away. She contrasted with the eagerness of the rest of the class. Obviously, she was not interested at all in the exercise. I approached her and asked if I could see the test results. She didn’t answer, just gave me the booklet. I read the result and told her: “Well, it seems that this test points to a very strong orientation of you. What do you think about that?” Calmly, she turned her face towards me and took from my hand the test booklet, and suddenly threw the papers free. They landed all over the table. Pointing them with her right index expressed [she said], “These are little papers, only papers…nothing more.” We didn’t say anything to her, accepting that she had the right to have her own criteria. Statistics, tests, and formal generalizations of data are practical and many people take advantage. Standardized tests have lots of advocates but there are some people who have personal point of view about what they want from life and prefer to run the risk to be wrong. Statistics do not govern their lives. At that moment I wished the little lady a good trip in this adventure that is life, sure that she had her own compass to deal with her future.