If you have a child in public school here in Texas, you probably know all about AR points.

I’m not even sure what AR stands for, but I know it’s a testing process that encourages kids to read books, understand what they’ve read, and answer comprehensive questions on the books.  Ana and Emma have both been doing AR tests since kindergarten and are old pros at it.

But pros in their own way.

This was demonstrated to us very clearly about a week ago when Ana got in the car at pickup and heaved a giant sigh.  “Well, I took eight AR tests today (!!!), and I made an 80 on one of them.”

“How did you do on the others?”

“Oh,” she sighed again, “I made one hundreds on them.  But I’ll have to try harder next time so I won’t get ANY 80s.”

“Hmm,” I said.  “Well, maybe.  But that’s still good!”

“Not really,” she huffed.

Meanwhile, Emma had climbed into the car as well and was bursting with enthusiasm.  “Mommy, today was the best day EVER!” 

“How so?”

“Weeeeeellll,” she said, beaming, “I took an AR test.  AND I MADE A 100!”

And this was pretty thrilling, y’all.  “Way to go, Em!”

“Yeah, last time I made a 20!  So, I was pretty EXCITED!”

At this point, Emma is averaging a 60, and she’s celebrating like she’s a mad, mad genius.  Ana is averaging a 97.5 and she’s bemoaning those 2.5 points keeping her from perfect.

I don’t think we have different expectations for them… so, how did they end up so different from one another?

Wondering how this will play out in the months and years to come…