Pass/Fail

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Written by Phyllis J. Lubin

Thursday, 16 June 2011 11:27

â€œTheyâ€™re sitting there chatting.â€

From here we can see the officials gathering on a side street.

â€œYou are not writing about this in your column!â€

â€œDonâ€™t worryâ€”Iâ€™m just writing now because itâ€™s therapeutic.â€

What is it about calling something a test that causes such anxiety? If this were only part of a course and this was merely a teacher reviewing your skills in your own car (not the official driverâ€™s education car with two sets of brakes), the anxiety level would be greatly diminished.

Often, during my summers at Avnet Country Day, I do not even tell my swimming students that I am testing them. I just ask them to swim a few laps, and suddenly I inform them that they have passed the test.

It is the fear of failure that prevents us from trying something even though we know we are fully capable. This past Monday evening, many of my colleagues at camp had to take the Nassau Lifeguard Certification exam. That is something that I have feared every three years for the past sixteen years, so I canâ€™t blame the lifeguards for their anxieties. Every time I have to re-certify, my heart races and I am sure that I will fail. Donâ€™t we all do that at timesâ€”prepare for the worst, so if we have better than expected results we will be satisfied? Iâ€™m not sure that is the best way to go about things. Think positive, is what I tell my own children, so shouldnâ€™t I take my own advice to heart?

â€œThe nice old man just left, and now the lady in the purple van is leaving. Where are they going?â€

â€œI guess that was the end of the first shift and we will get the second shift. It looks like we have more time to wait. You thought the lady in the purple van looked mean, so itâ€™s good you wonâ€™t get her.â€

Donâ€™t we do that? We are told that we shouldnâ€™t â€œjudge a book by its cover,â€ but I am guilty of doing just that. Boring, nondescript covers rightfully just wonâ€™t do; but with people, making rash decisions just by looking at them just doesnâ€™t seem fair. Maybe the lady in the purple van was the most lenient tester! Maybe we were judging her too quickly. We couldnâ€™t even see her clearly from our vantage point!

We have been waiting way too long for this exam! Our testing appointment was for three oâ€™clock, but to be on the safe side, we left Cedarhurst at twelve oâ€™clock. Suffice it to say that it certainly should not take three hours to get to Wantagh. We were there by 12:30. It is a rule that you canâ€™t practice driving in the testing location, so we left the testing location and practiced for a couple of hours elsewhere and were back at the testing site by 2:15. Still way too early, but better too early than too late!

I always seem to be too early for doctorâ€™s appointments, thinking that somehow I will be taken quicker. Most of the time that is not the case, but it somehow doesnâ€™t stop me from doing it again. After all, if you are late for an appointment, you risk not being seen at all, whereas when you are early for an appointment you are surely seen at some point. Most important unwritten rule in medicine: doctors can be late but patients cannot!

Meanwhile we are on line waiting. We surely would have had time to go to the Shoprite in Plainview. The Shoprite there was one of my favorite parts about my Mommy and Me experience with Yussie a number of years ago. When Yussie was an infant I used to spend Wednesday mornings at the Mommy and Me with Ms. Jane at the Association for Children with Down Syndrome in Plainview (ACDS). We would always finish the morning with a trip to at least one of the areaâ€™s two Shoprites. The benefit of those stores is that you could buy fresh fish and meat under the hashgacha of the rabbi of the Young Israel of Plainview at a fraction of the cost that you would pay elsewhere. The value was so good that I used to even take fish orders for family and friends on my weekly trips. We would finish our shopping excursion with a trip to Johnâ€™s Farmsâ€”a wonderful fruit store with much local produce.

ACDS is a great school. The educational slant is specifically for children with Down Syndrome, and all the teachers and therapists have a great understanding of the needs of this specific condition. Yussie spent three years at that school. Sadly, the program ends with preschool. I think the perfect educational experience for Yussie would be one that understands the needs of students with Down Syndrome while also giving an opportunity for mainstreaming with students in general education.

â€œThe purple van is back! What does that mean?â€

â€œHmm . . . I guess they just went away for a ten minute break and now they are back.â€

â€œBut what if I get the purple van lady? What happened to the nice-looking old man?â€

Why do we label people? Is it necessary? I guess if we do it only as a means of description since we do not actually know their names, itâ€™s not so terrible. But maybe we could call him the blue-pants man?

â€œHe didnâ€™t look so â€˜oldâ€™ . . . and how do we know he is â€˜niceâ€™?â€

I pray that when the new lifeguards meet me this summer they donâ€™t label me as the â€œbig, old lifeguard.â€ I wouldnâ€™t mind â€œfriendly, pretty lifeguardâ€ or the â€œnice, pleasant lifeguard.â€

The point of this column is not whether my daughter actually passed her driving test or not, rather to relate the anxiety related to the concept of passing or failing. I reassured my daughter that it really wouldnâ€™t matter if she did not passâ€”she could just consider the test as a learning experience and try again. But of course this column would not have been able to be submitted had she not passed. And by the way, she got the â€œnice, old manâ€ as her tester. I guess sometimes you can tell a book by its cover, or maybe she actually knows how to drive.

Phyllis Joy Lubin is an attorney with Rosenfeld & Maidenbaum, LLP, who resides in Cedarhurst with her husband, Leonard, and six children, Naftali, Shoshana, Rivka, Rochel, Yosef, and Lea. She welcomes your questions and comments at MothersMusings@gmail.com.