Ray Diffley
Director of Admission
Choate Rosemary Hall, CT
Member of AISAP Board of Directors
This is a blog on assessment, and assessment is about performance, so I have to take a moment to consider how we, as adults, parents and teachers, add to the hype over performance and perhaps add to the stress and anxiety when advising our kids and students before key moments in their lives. I find myself listening to and evaluating certain phrases and sayings, and in turn “picking on” some age-old pieces of advice and “requests” we bestow upon our children and students. The one that I believe is most overlooked is the request that comes almost daily from parents and teachers when giving advice to kids approaching an assignment, a game or a performance: “Just do your best.” Well, I say, hold on! Isn’t actually doing your best the pinnacle of all achievement? Isn’t doing your best maximizing your potential in every possible way and operating at peak performance? I think so. And to make it worse, we throw in “just”… to the already daunting “do your best”, as in, nooooo problem to operate at maximum potential...after all, ”Just do your best.” If doing one’s best were that easy, we’d probably never have to say it. And let’s face it, we often follow this loaded request with: “that’s all I’m asking.” Put those two thoughts together and you have the most intimidating and mixed-message request any person in authority can ever utter to a child: “...all I’m asking is that you just do your best.” Wow. I mean, I can see Seinfeld mocking this in a stand up routine; it’s rather ridiculous to be asking so much of our kids while appearing to ask so little.