Mom's Still the Word

By Howard Good

I'm always secretly amused by educators, policymakers, and parents who complain in angry, aggrieved tones about the high-stakes testing now sweeping American public schools. It isn't that I don't share some of their concerns; I do. Like them, I don't want to see teachers primarily "teaching to the test" or students wilting from test anxiety. It's just that I believe pressure is an unavoidable part of academic achievement. And I believe this for good reason— Lillie Good, to be exact.

Lillie Good is my mom. She lives with my dad in a retirement village in Florida, where she divides her time between hustling blue- haired old widows at mah-jongg and visiting doctors of every specialty under the tropical sun. But back when my three brothers and I were growing up in the cold suburban wastes of Long Island, she was an educational leader—at least around our house. She exercised her leadership in a manner that, though certainly effective, would be considered controversial (or perhaps even illegal) today.

Take the episode of the flashcards. Many parents use flashcards to help their children learn colors, shapes, numbers, and so on. I doubt, however, that any parent has ever used them quite as relentlessly as my mother did when I had trouble memorizing the multiplication tables in 3rd grade. Almost every evening while we kids ate dinner—she generally waited to eat with my dad, who often worked late—she hovered over us, monitoring our intake and flashing at me cards emblazoned with 8 x 6 = ___ and 6 x 7 = ___ and 7 x 9 = ___. This did little to enhance the flavor of my meatloaf and mashed potatoes or fish sticks and spaghetti, staples of a fifties childhood. Nonetheless, I can now multiply like a whiz, especially...