Balderdash and Brimstone

Educational Psychometry:  a mythological system of psychological analysis which seeks to explain quantitatively to what extent your child/husband/crazy Aunt Sarah can not learn things exactly the way the rest of "us" do and should therefore be approached differently if you want said child/husband/crazy Aunt Sarah to behave properly in a classroom.   

Or at Thanksgiving Dinner.

We can all agree that Aunt Sarah should just tone it down and maybe lay off the cough syrup and Schnapp's.

We might even agree that husbands learn best when they are, um, "content" with life, especially in the mornings (This is a kid friendly show, folks, but that giant *wink* was directed at you grown-up married folk).  Otherwise, you're just gonna spend a lot of time trying to explain WHY he needs to do it your way and he's gonna do it his way anyway.  Psychometry could help, but you'd have to get a diagnostic test done, then probably a behavioral analysis to see why his aptitude and behavior are not matching up, and then there's the whole setting of goals and objectives and applying any necessary accommodations to the goals and objectives and then assessing the effectiveness of your teaching program, making modifications and then re-assessing his aptitude in light of the recent changes, wait, you were doing all that already weren't you?  I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that was in the secret girl handbook we all got in middle school.

I distrust the entire field of psychology.  I think it has brought a great deal of unnecessary suffering into ordinary broken lives which could have been avoided by belief in something outside ourselves that we can trust, and turn to when we have made mistakes.  Mental dysfunctions which are not biological (chemical brain imbalance) seems to be mostly aberrations of guilt.  Guilt drives a lot of malfunction and dysfunction and dispelling it is difficult, unless you can really get behind the idea that you can be and are forgiven.  However, that's perilously dancing on the precipice of preaching outside in the rain without an umbrella and NOT what I'm after here.

Why am I yammering on about this today?

Lil' bro yet again "failed" his Gifted testing.  He's autistic and reads words that are at an 11th-12th grade level, does math years beyond his ken, sings Italian opera off the score, and in so many ways is clearly gifted.  Everyone can see it, yet no one here in the district seems to be able to properly test it, year after annoying year.  Yay psychometry! <sarcasm>

Meanwhile, he's also being re-evaluated for his SpEd placement this year (well, this week actually).  No surprises there, but in a state with no money and dwindling program access and availability, no amount of reassuring me "it's all fine" will assuage that terror that they will decide he isn't autistic suddenly (I must have "CURED" him, no? Aren't I super special, I'll write a BOOK and go on TV and stuff?), and wreck his little life with removing his status and accommodations.

That's why I'm yammering.  Because it isn't enough to be angry about the situation, I MUST project it onto all things and generalize about it until it bears no resemblance to the thing I started with.  Then and only then can I collapse in a heap and stare mindlessly into the void, and...

...claim my "cat-ass-trophy" for the day.

*sigh*

Back to Dalek slats.  There are only two more.  This is good.  I was about to start writing angry letters to Moffat just to ease my Whovian angst.